GEESE-GEESE-GOOSES-Raising Geese, HELP

[Sourdough]

Anyone with experience raising Geese. My geese's are coming Friday. One gander, and two female geese. The geese are free, and I get a lot of free geese food, a 7' X 10' goose Broodhouse, Pots and pans, and auto feeder thingie.

I understand each of the lady geese could produce about 80 eggs per year.

Which means there could be a lot of geese with in one year. So who knows anything about gooses.

They will be trained as attack geese, so wear your full motorcycle leathers and helmet if you stop in..........

I have given my word not to eat them, but I can eat there children....

[crashdive123]

Hopeak - have never raise geese, but here's a bit of info. http://www.extension.umn.edu/distrib...ms/DI1190.html Hope it helps.

[klkak]

Geese are great guard dogs and their eggs are good to eat. If you are going to eat the young ones. Keep them penned up and feed them corn. Oh yea, they S**t allot and everywhere.

[Tahyo]

We use to raise them many years ago. Some of them can get mean. Like klkak said, good watch dogs and eggs are good to eat.
Guinea fowl are even better watch dogs....

[DOGMAN]

Last year, my wife and I raised 12 ducks (and set them loose) and 36 pheasants. The ducks were alot of fun (but messy and stinky) 10 of them made it and took off to migrate and do duck things. One of the others died young, and the other one was killed by a fox on our creek. They really locked in on my wife and followed her around.

The pheasants were insane. I will never try that again, of the 36 we got as chicks, only 15 of them made it to adulthood to be set loose. They would literally kill one another in their pen. When they would start growing feathers the others would start picking at them until they bled...then once they bled it was all over, the others would attack them and peck them to death. THey never acted tame in the least bit. We set them loose and never saw even one of them again.

Our goal of doing this was to try and repay for all the wild game we eat... sort of replinish the cupboards of nature. It was a fun experience.

[Ole WV Coot]

One big mess and downright mean. It makes you feel good to kill and eat one, just to get even. I put one in a guy's work van, almost got fired over that one.

[Tahyo]

When I was a kid growing up, we had a regular smörgåsbord of chickens (all kinds), ducks, geese, quail and guineas. All said and told we probably had near 200 of everything put together. Nothing was caged except the quail and the game chickens.

One thing I use to get kick out of was watching how the guineas would single out a rooster or a hen that had pissed them off. They would not fight it head on. They would take turns hitting it from behind all day long and if you didn't intervene, they would eventually wear it out. I'm not sure if they would have actually killed because we always caught the "victim" and caged it till the guineas forgot about it.

Oh yea, I caught some young foxes one day and traded them to a friend for some pheasants. I too had bad luck raising the pheasants. I think out of about 25 or so I ended up with 4 or 5.

[Rick]

Tahyo - Those guineas sure make great watch "dogs" don't they?

I wonder if the problem with pheasants is they are territorial. Perhaps in separate cages?

Hopeak - I think Wild Woman raises geese.

[Tahyo]

Rick,
If you have guineas, nothing comes in your yard without them raising all kinds of racket.

[Rick]

And they will sit in trees waiting on you. At least dogs don't sit in trees. Well, most don't.

[trax]

One big mess and downright mean. It makes you feel good to kill and eat one, just to get even. I put one in a guy's work van, almost got fired over that one.

I don't know anything about raising geese. Know a thing or two about killing the wild ones. I just admire this guy more every time he posts. I'm imagining this guy opening his van....oh man, thanks Coot, that's my morning laugh.

[DOGMAN]

I wonder if the problem with pheasants is they are territorial. Perhaps in separate cages?

That is what we eventually did (after 15 or so murders). Then one day my dad was at my place, and saw our little operation and said "You need to blindfold them" and that keeps them from pecking one another. Apparently my dad and grandparents had raised hundreds of pheasants when he was a kid, because there was some game bird grant that payed rural families to raise and release pheasants in our state. Anyway, I said to him "why didn't you tell me that when I said I was raising pheasants" he said "I thought that was common knowledge" Heck, I never even knew he'd raised pheasants. But give me a break...blindfolding baby pheasants is "common knowlwdge"

[Rick]

Hmmm. Maybe it was murder. Maybe there was only one deranged pheasant that killed the others late into the night when you weren't around. It may have been a good thing you acted when you did. You might have seen a pheasant shadow on your bedroom wall. By then, it would have been too late for everyone.

You didn't find a little tiny hockey mask did you?

I'll say it was Mr. Pheasant in the Library with the Candlestick.

[DOGMAN]

Hmmm. Maybe it was murder. Maybe there was only one deranged pheasant that killed the others late into the night when you weren't around. It may have been a good thing you acted when you did. You might have seen a pheasant shadow on your bedroom wall. By then, it would have been too late for everyone.

You didn't find a little tiny hockey mask did you?

I'll say it was Mr. Pheasant in the Library with the Candlestick.

pheasantcide is an epidemic....their beaks should be outlawed.

[Rick]

Hey, beaks don't kill pheasants. Pheasants kill pheasants!

[klkak]

Guineas will also kill any snakes they find and they are deadly efficient at. Someone gave my Mom 6. A year later we had about 50. After we got them I never seen another rattler or any other snake on the place.

[DOGMAN]

Peasants killing peasants...No, peasants revolt against the rich

[Tahyo]

One of the things we use to do as kids around Easter was have contests with boiled eggs. You get out one of your Easter eggs and someone gets one of theirs. Then you kind of tap them together and who ever egg gets a crack in it has to give to the other person. I use to boil and color some guinea eggs. Hard as hell. Needless to say I use win those little contests. Most people never caught on, but sometimes they did as guinea eggs are smaller and have a slightly different shape to them.

[Sam Reeves]

Guinea fowl are even better watch dogs....

Guineas are the ultimate burglar alarm. Not good for much of anything else, though.

[klkak]

One of the things we use to do as kids around Easter was have contests with boiled eggs. You get out one of your Easter eggs and someone gets one of theirs. Then you kind of tap them together and who ever egg gets a crack in it has to give to the other person. I use to boil and color some guinea eggs. Hard as hell. Needless to say I use win those little contests. Most people never caught on, but sometimes they did as guinea eggs are smaller and have a slightly different shape to them.

I remember when my cousin a friend and I were playing. My cousin got mad at the friend and started chasing him around. When he couldn't catch him, cousin picked up a guinea egg and threw it at him. Hit him in the head and split his head open. The egg didn't break. You are right, they are very hard.