Naughty Geese

Suspect
Guilty -caught red-handed with a spring onion hanging from his mouth.

Our geese are generally well behaved, if a bit noisy at times (they sound like someone dragging their fingernails across a blackboard). They know to stay off the patio and the fish pond and we get along just fine.

They visit the neighbours occassionally and sit underneath their trees in the orchard eating the fruit on the ground.

Then out of the blue, the geese discovered the neighbours garden and ate their freshly planted carrots and and spring onions..

I can tell you that that was just embarrassing, and we haven’t let them free range around our property since then.

I cant be angry at the geese though -they just dont know any better.
You need to catch them in the act of doing wrong and tell them off on the spot, otherwise they just dont understand.

Stockmanship

Now that we have sorted out whats needed for our chickens, ducks, geese (and a cat), we have drifted into a feeding routine twice a day, seven days a week.

It’s easy to fall into a routine where we don’t notice whats really happening, and we just throw some food and water at them without any emotional engagement.

It’s a dangerous way to be, because you aren’t really caring for them, or noticing how they are.

The geese for example are naturally quite anxious like a bunch of 4 year olds with OCD. Any change to their routine raises their stress levels and the amount of noise they make,

The answer is to simply talk to them in a calming voice and sometimes sit down with them for while. It only takes a few minutes for them to calm down and go back to browsing thru the paddock picking out bits of grass to eat. I always try to feed them at the same time and place everyday.

Our geese appreciate the security of having us around.

Ducks are very self assured, placid, and happy to see you (they always think you have food). The only notable thing is that they need their water changing every day, because they turn it into a mud bowl rather rapidly.

The chickens have a hierarchy amongst themselves, and always have internal squabbles going on. The key thing is just to watch their health in general.