Brieanne Rice

Theresa Brennan wrote:How did you get your LGD to be ok with the geese?

Hi Theresa,

Hannah, my LGD, is an older girl now who pretty much tolerates any livestock. In her youth she would have been a bit more feisty with the poultry though.  The only way she will bite them is if they try to eat her food, which is why we just try to feed raw food so the grazers don't want the kibble. There is always some sort of food chain on the farm, no matter what is being fed I guess.

Hi Maria,

I can definitely get some pictures of the chicken composting area and the turkey tractors. The ducks are currently with the egg layers bc our 3 tractors are being used for meat birds and turkeys but I'll get pics today.

Hi! I actually was all set to get some Cotton Patch goslings and thought I had done my research until I stumbled across an article that mentioned they fly! I used to have Muscovy and that was the reason we ended up phasing them out. If there is a place that doesn't have 8 ft high fence on your property they will get into it (Muscovy) unless you clip their wings and sometimes even the most skilled aviators will still make it if they take off from a high point. Needless to say I was both grateful and disappointed that I found that out before I bought them. We got some Roman Tufted and Sebastopol crosses that we are happy with for now. The CP geese are so beautiful though. Good luck on your adventure!

That's got me wondering if there is any sort of tree hay geese will eat. Hay is expensive on my Island, and hard to get.

We experimented last year with locust trees and the geese went crazy. I have hybrid willow, lacebark elm, and white mullberry for them and I know they will eat it wholeheartedly. It's little right now but when it's big enough I'll let them graze it and post about it here on Permies.

Jay Angler wrote:Permaculture Motto: The Problem is the Solution!

My geese are supposed to be "guard geese" protecting the chickens and Muscovy from aerial predators during the day. It's not working in the spring, because they get too interested in producing more geese and become too territorial.

Jay, I wish mine would make more of themselves. They lay eggs but never set. Alas. Also, I didn't mention this but it seems like my geese try to drown my ducks when they're competing for water in the water trough. I realized they don't guard my ducks after that. Haha.



@Brieanne - do your geese eat hay when they have not access to grass (like when we got a foot of snow)?

Yes, they eat the hay with the sheep when they can't be on the pastures, like when it rains or I'm too busy to move the electric fence.

Thanks Timothy. She's an old lady who gets to retire a little closer to home now. She used to guard our meat sheep flock on the property but she has her puppies who took over for her. She has quite the spoiled life now and deserves every second of it.

Just want to share a bit of an Aha moment that I recently had. Geese can be so overbearing with my ducks, don't need grain, and just kind of don't fit in to the bigger picture of what I'm doing on our property. However, Asian style goose cooked over a bed of butternut squash and potatoes will always fit nicely with what I'm doing. Then I heard a voice say, "Treat them like the graziers they are!" Aha! Yes! Sooooo, they now go into electric netting on the pasture WITH my dairy sheep and are brought in with the sheep at night to bed down. This fits well because they don't need the tastiest bites of grass and herbs in the pastures, so it's fine that they go in with the sheep and eat some lower and some highest quality bites.That kills two tasty birds with one stone, so to speak. They used to go into a perfectly beautiful, ready-to-graze pasture of all their own with the ducks only to make a mess and eat all the dairy quality goodies, lay a thick layer of manure down over the plants, and smash it all down with their flat feet. Yes! Now the ducks and turkeys are in tractors on pasture and the chickens have their compost-making fortress. I love when it all fits together.

You're so welcome. Wish I could have had some good news for you, but people like me who love to experiment took some losses and have lived to tell the tale. I used to run Katadhin and St. Croix and liked the former much better. They are super mellow and not flighty like the St Croix in my experience. Good luck and I'm sure you'll find what works for you.

Hi there,

I run a mixed flock of ducks and geese through my 1 acre orchard which is quite lush in the spring. I have Chinese geese and they are fantastic weeders. I have bushes of all different kinds between my trees and if there are leaves on them they will eventually eat them. Not sure if my geese just have a broad pallette but I can almost guarantee they will eat the blueberries and the leaves off your bushes. They also bother the lower, even bare branches of my trees with their (tasting) and are forever mouthing things which don't resemble food in the least bit, such as my tree tags. They also strip the leaves when trees come out of dormancy I have to take them out beforehand.

As for sheep, I have to shepherd my dairy flock through my ochard (too dense for electric netting) so I have been able to observe very well what will happen. You have as long as it takes to fill their rumen before they get bored with grazing and want to browse and start doing shady things to your trees, stripping bark included. Nothing to do with a mineral deficiency and more to do with the fact that they are on a mission to get as much nutrition/variety as possible via as many food sources they can find. I trained mine with rocks. If they are good little sheep and leave my trees and they are fine, but they know they will get a gentle knock on the shoulder (pre-shearing) with my staff or a small rock thrown near them  if I'm too far away (for effect) if they even look sideways at my trees. This is very effective.

One more comment that may be noteworthy to you. My shearer related to me last year that Babydoll sheep have been all the rage here on the Central Coast of CA. He said they are just expensive novelties that people use here in the grape orchards but the customers he has talked to so far have been disappointed with them. He said you are much better off using Dorpers which require no shearing, are loads cheaper, and are better at the job than the BD sheep are. I can't recall the other reasons he stated but it made me glad that I run Dorpers here on our acreage.

Hi there,

I know this post is a bit old but I just thought I'd chime in. I raise 5 dairy sheep (plus their lambs in spring) on about 3 acres pasture. I started with goats back in 2011 and the soil was rocky, dry, and lacking OM. All that grew here was loads of mustard and wild barley grass. Fast forward to last year I was able to go the whole growing season with no hay! My soil will take most seed I give it with glee, whereas before my seed never germinated. It has taken this long but I have fast tracked the soil improvement in the past 3 years by doing these things:
1. Wait until the pasture has around a ft of growth and your legumes have flowers that are dying before letting them in to eat. Grass on the other hand should be in the vegetative growth. Once grass has gone to seed it's done for that season and not dairy quality. Think shiny and very green.
2. Overseed the pasture with a diverse mix of seed before letting the animals in to graze. It could be seeds that won't even grow during that particular season. No worries. They will germinate when the time is right. Hooves are very good at planting and the seed bank will always be diverse.
3. Take them out when pasture is around 6 inches tall
4. Use electro net to give them enough grazing for 8 hrs, then take them out and put them to bed. Better to move them twice or take them out early and feed hay then to overgraze. They don't need to eat again until morning. The book Kick the Hay Habit talks extensively about this topic.
5. Provide kelp/minerals at all times while their on the pasture. They will mineralize the soil for you.
6. Never, ever, ever let them in while it's raining or if the soil is soggy. They will damage it and recovery will be unbearably long. Also don't let them in a new spot if the pasture has frost on it. Wait until the soil dries out a bit when the sun starts shining.
7. Throw one flake of hay into their new spot early in the spring each day, to make up for the lack of pasture litter and to provide dry matter. I noticed that they won't eat very much of the super lush grass in the spring without nibbling that flake first/in between. Otherwise you won't get enough grazing pressure.
8. Make sure they have plenty of water. They need water to mix with the plant material in the rumen to digest food properly. Same reason as above.

Hope this helps! Sheep are called the Golden Footed animal for a reason. Happy New Year!