GetGeese.org

Why Get Geese?

Lawns have gotten a bad reputation because of the huge amounts of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides they use, not to mention the noise and pollution put out by the lawnmower.

But as far as green goes, it turns out that lawns (pasturelands) sequester carbon better than the rain forest!

Soil carbon research insights show co-solutions, Rodale Institute.

And there is a way to have a lawn without the pollution.  Get geese.  They spend their days mostly grazing on the lawn, bathing and grooming, and sleeping.  And fertilizing and weeding.  Geese love singing and when you learn their little noises, a gentle honking usually, or a squeeking for excitement, you can make the sounds and they will sing along!!  Nothing is more fun than singing with your geese, who will flap their wings with joy that you have joined their tribe!  They may even approach close enough for petting.  Don’t be insulted if you get goosed, though.  That’s just the way they are.

They do love grains and seeds and will come on the run when you put out the chicken scratch and sunflower seeds.  They will also help themselves to the chicken pellets in the henhouse.  Make sure there are no antibiotics in the pellets as these will injure your geese.  I feed the little fluffballs a scoop of sunflower seeds and grain first thing in the morning, right before i let the hens out, as the geese are going to eat first anyhow.

The traditional use of geese is weeding, so they are bred to go where you put them, using a five foot long bamboo cane.  Just walk along behind them and they hustle to the back fence or wherever you want them to go.  Reach left with the switch, they veer right.  Never never strike them as bird bones are very delicate.  They will weed the strawberry patch, the cotton, or your vegetable garden, but wherever there are geese, there is a go-sherd.  You need to run them around the yard every once in a while just so they will know where they stand.  They actually calm down when you do this because then they know what you are about, just a go-sherd setting them to work, not a carnivore looking for dinner.  I run them to the far back of the yard when I think they are hanging around the porch too much.  Every day or so.

They will not go into the woods, they are pasture creatures, though they did eventually learn to hang out in the woods with the hens during the heat of a Texas summer.  But just the one patch at the end of the porch where I ran the sprinkler to cool things off.  Use fences are to keep the geese off your porch, as they are quite curious as to what you are doing in the house and come on the porch to see, and are not too careful about making messes.  It only takes 18 inches to fence in (or out) a goose.