We got a mated pair of Embden  geese early last year. Based on our experience so far there will always be a place on our farm for geese. Geese are much more expensive than chickens, ducks or turkeys but are well worth having.

When we first got our geese it was early in the mating season and they were not the friendliest barn yard companion. We kept them in a paddock formed by short hog panels tied together for our safety. Every time I would go to care for them I would be greeted with hissing by the gander. By late May the mating season was about up and the geese became much better behaved.

In late May we let the geese out of their paddock to free range the farm yard. This also marks the last time the geese were given any feed. It is December as I write this post, and my geese are fat and happy with no care other than water. How is that for self sufficiency?

Geese are the easiest to care for domestic animal on my farm. They are big enough to defend themselves (with guard dog backup). They graze on the lawn for their sustenance, and only need to be provided water. With a diverse lawn to graze our geese have been healthy and fat all year with no additional feed besides possible gleanings of small amounts of grain left behind while feeding other critters.

Since they have never ventured away from the yard they don’t need fencing. When we first let them loose I feared they would go down to the large pond and would be hard to catch if we needed to in the future. We also had a coyote attack on the nesting Canadian geese on our large pond so it wasn’t the safest area either. The fear proved unfounded as our geese never ventured away from the yard.

We made the mistake of trying to incubate the goose eggs last year instead of allowing the geese to do the work. We were planning to incubate the first group and then allow the geese to do the work on the rest, but she stopped laying sooner than expected. Apparently it is common for first year laying geese to have low fertility and even with extra care we only had two geese hatch, and only one survived. Our one survivor got the very unique name of Goosey and became more like a pet puppy than regular poultry.

A gosling will imprint on a human and they make a great pet. Goosey would play outside with the kids and weed in the garden with us. If she wandered too far she would cry for help and when she spotted us she would run as fast as she could to get back. Of all the critters I have kept a gosling is one of the friendliest and actually craves human companionship.

For the next breeding season coming up we have a better plan. We will take fewer eggs and the eggs we do take will hopefully be taken care of by foster parents. We have currently been breeding our flock to encourage broodiness, and will be using these broody momma hens as foster parents. We will only take several of the first eggs and we will be allowing the goose to have a clutch with the rest.

With all the good things I have to say about geese I do have a few bad qualities to report. Geese think we have a back porch for a nice bathroom. I don’t know why, but they prefer to use the concrete slab and I am always spraying off their droppings. They also like to wander into my shop and do the same thing.

Many people think geese are mean, and some may be. During the breeding season our geese were very aggressive, but for the rest of the year they didn’t cause a problem. I have never had the geese be aggressive to me outside of breeding season, but for some reason Goosey attacked my son Jacob. We are not sure why, it may have been a defensive move on Goosey’s part. As is the case most three year olds Jacob can be a little rough with critters at times.

A Place for Geese on a Small Farm

With the initial investment of their purchase made and the minimal care and feeding needed we will allow our geese to populate the farm. With such minimal care needed the drawback of slow reproduction doesn’t matter as much. I figure a safe bet is that the average goose will be able to raise five replacements every year. If we can get better at goose egg incubation we may be able to hatch out several ourselves in addition to the gooses clutch.

In the future we hope to institute the tradition of the Christmas goose in our family. Geese also fetch a pretty good price. When our build up is complete we can sell several a year which will more than pay for the minimal feed needed in the worst weeks of winter. While it would be hard to generate the populations possible with chickens, geese would make a nice side income and source of homegrown food with very minimal inputs.

We are currently thinking of putting the geese in a fenced area behind the corral. This will give them plenty of grazing area and keep them in a visible area away from my back porch. I might even be nice enough to pour them a nice concrete slab to use.

Update 3-10-15

For ease of finding eggs and to keep the peace we have moved the geese into the old goat pen for the breeding season. We have five eggs in the incubator with a lot more on the way.