Weeder Geese Questions?

[babalubird]

Who uses geese to weed your gardens/crops? How successful are you, share timing/etc. tips please.

Do you use the White or Brown Chinese geese most successfully for this purpose or a different breed?

All info to the success of this endeavor would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Connie

[cchoate]

I have 3 monster Toulouse that free range around my yard / pond - this is what they do for me:

Cut down on mowing my grass - I only have to mow once every 2 weeks which saves diesel in my tractor.

Haven't had a cattail in my 1 acre pond in years - saves me the trouble of pulling them myself.

Any food scraps from the kitchen go out the back door and are consumed in minutes.

They're eggs make great omelets.

Cheap to feed as they mostly scavenge their own food.

A few cons:

For some reason they like my concrete sidewalk and that's where they poop (alot)!

They won't weed your garden but consume everything in it. I have a 32" fence around mine which keeps them a bay.

Most geese are very noisy. I've had many different breeds but Toulouse are very docile and quiet, which is why I like them over any other breed.

[Dondoyle26]

Connie , It depends on what you are growing when it comes to geese and weeding. For one NEVER feed you geese table scrapes example tomatoes, strawberrys or fresh corn if yuu plan on growing these in your garden. Also its best to get goslings and raise yourself you can train them to eat the undiserable weeds that grow in ur garden(start feeding them to the goslings young so they learn to like them). Grown geese can be very finaky in what they eat. You should only want to use the geese on a well established garden that is already grown or established would be a better word choice. Anything new like corn seedlings they will just mow down. Then you will want to kill the geese. Chineese and Africans would work well because they are lighter geese and wont break plants crossing over the rows. We let our geese loose in the garden but we really dont grow anything other than corn and tomatoes cucumbers squash and some pepers and they normally dont touch them. Of course they are not in their all day and they are supervised. Any mischiveous behavior and they go back to their field. O yea a down fall of the chineese and africans they tend to be a bit more aggressive. But thats just my experience with them. What ever u decide good luck and with any animal just have to watch them and see how they act. Keep in mind also that depending on how big ur garden is depends on how many geese u want. If you have to many geese in the garden that may also lead them to eat things other than whats intended.

[babalubird]

Thanks, Don.

The current garden is about an acre or will be. I understand I need about 8 geese on a new garden, that is, freshly tilled and still full of coastal grass, crab grass, and various narrow-leafed weeds that no doubt will still try to re-establish.

We have just seeded that acre in Austrain Winter Peas, a green manure crop intended to put nitrogen in the soil. I realize the peas will have to establish themselves a bit. But, will the geese eat pea plants once established? I don't care so much about the pea pods themselves, though we will probably plow it under before then. In the meantime, would weeder geese be a good way to continue "weeding" that acre among the Austrian peas, or are peas one of the plants that geese especially like?

If the geese will work with peas, how tall should I let the vines get (ground covering, not staked), before allowing the geese access?

Thanks, Don.

[Dondoyle26]

I'm not to familiar with the peas. Its to hot down here for them to really do well. We do however do a few rows of red beans. The geese never bother them but then again a red bean (kidney bean) for my northern friends is on a bush, I would say maybe 8 -12 inches ??? Before they start falling over Its usually the new growth geese are after. Do you plan on using adult geese ? If you do BE CAREFUL depends alot on what feeding habbits these geese have. Like i said before young geese are best. As far as the pods of the peas they shouldnt touch. They dont touch our red beans and this year many of them dried up on the bushes. Just rememeber NOT to over graze the garden. Maybe start with 3 or 4 to test the water so to speak. Do it on a weekend when you are off and can kinda supervise them a little watch how they do. If they start mowing at your peas maybe let them grow a little taller. Usually with us all the seeds we plant come up well in advance of the weeds. So the plants are established when the grass starts in. Good Luck

[goosedragon]

Who uses geese to weed your gardens/crops? How successful are you, share timing/etc. tips please.
I have in the past used geese to weed my flower gardens. I generally used them for spring cleanup because in my NC climate some weeds continue to grow during the winter. For Cleanout work I liked to have them hungry for graze and would herd them as directly as possible from their pen to the fenced (to keep the geese out) garden. what I liked was that they would generally pull the weeds out and eat roots and all. After my plantings became established I would turn geese loose in them again but be sure they weren't as hungry as for cleanout. Given the choice they would eat the young tender weeds rather than the established plants. Keep an eye on them and get them out of there when they have finished the weeds and before they have nipped back too many of your plants. (they like the young tips better than the old plants)

Do you use the White or Brown Chinese geese most successfully for this purpose or a different breed? I don't think color makes any difference. White Chinas were most popular for weeder geese because china goslings were th cheapest to buy, White because they dress out for the table better. I used what I had but I would not use the heavy africans for anything other than cleanout. The more nimble chinas, pilgrims, and romans would get selected for weeding established plants.~gd

All info to the success of this endeavor would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Connie

[babalubird]

Thanks Don and Goosedragon.

I planned to get babies and try to train them myself. Bold move, probably, for a goose newby.

Goosedragon, no I didn't mean to imply that color made any difference. Guess I should have just asked if Chinese Geese were the ones of choice for weeding versus other breeds, but rereading my question, it was kinda funny. But thank you for all the other valuable info. I believe I'll have to give the geese a try. Just gleaning info right now. Will probably be several months before we actually make the jump into buying some.

Thanks everyone.

Connie

[goosedragon]

Connie, I replied to your post without reading the other posts or the fact that you are planning a cover/manure planting of Austrian Winter Peas. I don't know how you are planning to use that crop; I have used them to improve land for both garden and lawn. Here in NC they are planted in late fall and turned under in early spring or even late winter before they have developed seed pods since the seeds will produce a very persistent weed in either garden or lawn. For Lawns we usually over seed with rye grass (not rye grain!) to hold the soil over the summer and start lawns in the fall when the weather provides more natural moisture. Spring here can be very short where we turn on our air conditioning maybe a week or two after we have turned off our heat. Austrian Winter Peas don't do well in heat and tend to go to seed and die rapidly and to get the most benefit should be turned under before they reach that stage. Depending where you get your goslings from, your peas should be long gone before goslings are available. (I confess that I often would turn my adult geese loose in the peas while they were actively growing and they would get gobbled up and turned into green manure pellets by the geese) like somebody said above geese poop a lot! (On green graze about a pound/bird/day)
I think starting with goslings is the way to go, get them out there working for short periods whenever the temperature is warm enough even before they are feathered out. You must keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t get chilled or overheated. Be sure to provide water on the worksite at all times. Try to find a container that they can dip their whole head into without being able to get their body into. You should soon notice that they will only work a certain distance from the water and take breaks to get a drink often. This is the key to getting them to work where you want them to. Move the water container to where you want them to work and away from the area that they have cleaned out. If you want them to work row crops that they can’t see over, you must put at least 2 geese per row with a water container for each row. A lone goose will panic if it can’t see other geese, and they tend to avoid areas where they can’t see over the vegetation. If they sit down and don’t move, take them to the barn they are finished for the session.
Here are some rules of thumb. They like young tender plants better than older plants. Mine always liked broad leafed plants better than grasses. Mine liked to dig out and eat the roots and all if practical. They will taste just about anything and develop likes and dislikes which are individual but will invite other geese to try their favorites. They don’t dislike working in the rain but hot sun makes them want to rest. To be safe keep anything you don’t want them to eat well fenced.
If you run into questions just post with Weeder geese in the subject, I usually check at least once per day.~gd

[babalubird]

Goosedragon, I was surprised to read that your geese preferred the broad-leafed plants over grasses. I thought that was what made weeder geese usable as weeders was their preference for grassy type plants versus the broad leaves of most of our vegetable crops. Now I'm frieking out over this idea as I really need them chomping on coastal grass, nut grass (HATE THAT STUFF!), etc.

Eeek!

Connie

[goosedragon]

Well good news If you mean the same thing by nut grass that I call nut sledge. It was far and away my geese's fovorite food ! The first one to dig up the nut like root was a gander and he offered a bite to his goose. She couldn't keep a secret and soon every goose was digging on that type of grass like little jack hammers that wouldn't quit until they got the nuts. They completely destroyed that pest in the civilized parts of my farm. Just for fun I would mow paths down to the swampy part of the land where the nut sledge really thrived. I would have to herd them down the path until they caught sight of the nut sledge and then stand back and watch the fun.
I think one of the reasons that they perfered broad leaf plants was because there were few if any left in the pasture after they had grazed there the first year so broad leafed weeds were a special treat when I would let them in my garden plot to weed. I didn't think that they would like dan-de-lions (I know I am misspelling) thought they would be too bitter for their taste. I had to fence off the few remaining in order to get a few tender young leaves for my own salads!
As far as grasses go they seemed to like the clump formers like Orchard and Costal after I had run the mower over them to get rid of the tough old growth when they started shooting up the white or pale green parts they would be right there to chomp them right off In the winter they would settle for burmuda (Sp again) commonly called wire grass where I live. About the only thing that they wouldn't eat was wild onion or wild garlic or wild chives or what ever they were that would sprout in my lawn in spring and fall and thrive in cool weather.
They ate my banana plant right down to the ground when I went to answer the phone wile I was repairing the fence that protected it. Thing was 4 feet tall and an inch and a quarter in diameter at ground level. That stump was all that was left when I came back 15 minutes later, that and 6 quilty looking geese!
If you start out with goslings maybe you can teach them to eat what you want them to but I wouldn't expect them to eat grass out of a bed of tender young greens. ~gd