Weeder Geese (or something!) in Blueberry Orchard

Greetings Permies,
I have been reading with interest the multitude of posts regarding critters to control weeds.

Two seasons ago, I began managing a 3.5 acre, 12 year old blueberry orchard in middle Tennessee. We have many varieties of bushes including half-highs, 1-2 year old plants and mature bushes.

There are 10 foot grass paths between rows. Johnson grass grows voraciously in the rows between and within the blueberry bushes. We also have many trees (walnut, oak privet), vines (morning glory, Virginia creeper, muscadine), poison ivy etc. growing up in-row and within the bushes.

It goes without saying that weeding by hand is a futile task for only a small crew. So, I’m exploring options for grazing the orchard.

I’ve read that weeder geese are grass-oriented in their grazing. Originally, I thought babydoll sheep might be a solution but, after reading some threads about bark-chewing, I’m rethinking this and considering running either Chinese or African weeder geese through the orchard, rotating them with electric mesh fencing.

I’m wondering if anyone has experience grazing a blueberry orchard. Are geese the way to go? Will they eat poison ivy and vines or only the grass? Will they trample the babies? Will I be trading one headache for another or will I be sipping iced tea and eating goose eggs this summer?

Cheers!
Chris

Welcome to permies, Chris!

I have geese, but I haven't tried weeding with them. Hopefully one of the members who has will speak up.

However, I will mention that our geese only lay in the spring - they stop by mid- June, so no "summer goose eggs".

There are people who use Indian Runner ducks for slug/bug control in orchards. Ducks do less damage than chickens supposedly. They do lay in the summer. We have Khaki Campbell ducks in our field with the geese and one of them believes she's a goose, so they can get along fine together. (She actually quacks with a goose accent!)

Popping my head in here quickly hoping for something light ...

Welcome to Permies!

I haven't grazed blueberries with geese, but I have African geese who do graze in my herb garden.
The odds are high you'd be trading headaches from having to dig out Johnson grass from between the bushes to having to deal with goose foolishness, but I prefer geese to weeding. They keep me company and applaud my efforts at the very least.
Geese are good for grazing grass, but they are much lighter on the grass than sheep, and do no damage to established plants, unless/until you get a Very Particular Goose - one of mine ate an entire pot of peppermint in two days. She even dumped the pot out to eat the roots! This is the only full scale murderous tendency I've spotted in my three, aside from their goose-ish opinions, distrust of large vehicles, and stubborn desire to walk in annual migrations.

I have never had nor heard of geese bothering established ground plantings, but they are fully capable of grubbing stubborn weeds out and leaving "armadillo" holes. They wouldn't eat the blueberry bushes. They might eat a blueberry.
They are great for grazing down grass areas where it's dangerous to run sheep or machinery.
To get the best result, controlled grazing would be advised. As long as you can trap them in an area, they'll graze it down until there's nothing they want to eat.

My geese have not eaten poison ivy. They've had ample opportunity and have decided, "Nah". There was one year they set up the Main Nest in a poison ivy tangle. They might be like clown fish for the poison ivy, choosing to live with it for some reason.
Whether they have an agreement with the poison ivy or not, they have shown no desire to eat tree leaves, vines of many sorts, grape vines, mulberry leaves, acorns, native grape, goldenrod, giant ragweed, native aster, fenugreek plants, and a host of other things I have tried to get them to munch. They do eat dock, spinach, cheese, raw egg, seed heads, sorghum, most if not all grass (we have an assortment including natives in our yard and they might have favorites, but it doesn't show), verbena. They ate all the leaves they could reach off my wild stands of verbena bonariensis and all the wild horsemint and spotted mints they could find.

Without knowing more about the babies they might trample, I would need to know an approximate species. Are we talking about baby humans? Because mine will either threaten or run away (advance to the rear with haste) from anything strange. Humans count as strange. My gander *still* tries to drive my husband away.
Baby plants? Well, the webbed nature of their feet makes them kinder to any vegetation that might get stomped. The only way I can tell where they like to bed down is from the profusion of down they leave behind. They're good to the ground and will taste things, but if it's not something they find edible, they aren't needlessly destructive. Very unlike chickens, to be honest.

In general, while I would love to recommend geese to everyone, because I love mine, I can't tell you that they would solve your weeding problems. They'd help mow the grass and would help with some of the weeding, but they might not be the answer. Not alone, for certain.

They lay in the spring. As of yet, there is no non-seasonal goose laying. The only way I know of to preserve goose eggs with any reliability is to turn them into egg noodles. They make great baked goods. Well, goose eggs are great in baked goods. Geese are great roasted. Geese don't know how to operate an oven, as of yet. There's always the possibility they might learn.

Well, 2 months later I’m finally getting around to showing my appreciation to y’all for the advice. An abundant schedule and a scarcity of internet can do that I guess.
Care of geese certainly seems preferable to endless weeding. The reaction from the owner of the orchard was that they are “noisy” and “stink” which could be prohibitive given that we are a UPick farm.
For some reason, (wool, meat, aesthetics?) I am still enamored with Babydoll sheep. I’ve read that they’ll strip bark but, if rotated every 2-3 days with electric net, maybe the pressure on the plants won’t be too much.
If I go with the geese, I’ll be sure to report my findings. If I go with sheep, you can find me lurking in the sheep forum.

You might like this video on ducks in blueberry orchards, against slugs. They also had a few geese.


Regarding babydolls and/or Shropshire for grazing versus bark stripping: Apparently it depends on 3 things:

-Mineral deficiency (if they lack nutrients, they strip more bark. Free choice of minerals helps)
-Learned behaviour (meaning you need to "cull the stripper")
-Genetics, (may be linked to mineral needs which differ between individuals. Culling helps anyway). Edit: there are also different strains of babydolls / Olde English Southdowns, so check which ones you buy.

Morning, Hans, great video, thank you for sharing. Slugs are not much of an issue here (knock on wood) so they are probably not appropriate for my context, however, his comments about geese are very interesting. Am I correct in understanding that geese don’t need feed if they have an abundance of forage? That’s pretty incredible. And gentleness on the shallow root systems are definitely a consideration.

Chris Probasco wrote: Am I correct in understanding that geese don’t need feed if they have an abundance of forage? That’s pretty incredible. And gentleness on the shallow root systems are definitely a consideration.

It does need to be quality forage, and I admit I give mine a bedtime chicken feed treat as it helps to get them to cooperate about being locked up. We have too many predators not too.

I have had no luck with my geese self-replicating either. I strongly prefer birds to be raised by bird moms, so I also have some Muscovy. I'm hoping long term, that geese raised by Muscovy, will regain their ability to be effective at setting and brooding.

So far as meat, geese have much more bone for the amount of meat than turkeys, and if raised on forage, will take longer to get to a weight that's worthwhile than "industrial meat poultry". If your goal is meat, I'd choose a breed based on that. Mine current "parents" are rescues, because my main goal was aerial predator control for my ducks (they're not perfect, but they do seem to help). However, quality fat for baking is important in my homestead, and geese are awesome for that!

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.

Interesting! (Apologies to the moderators, we’ve left the realm of waterfowl). I wonder what the specific complaints about the BD sheep were? I fear a full size sheep would be hard to keep from annihilating the bushes.

The appeal of the BD to me is their stature— their inability to reach the leaves of the plants— but it’s also a pitfall. Rotationally grazing BD sheep (or geese for that matter) through a blueberry orchard would seemingly necessitate mesh electric fencing rather than high tensile wire, and moving mesh fencing through the bushes every 2-3 days is trading one headache for another. In that respect, St. Croix or Katahdins might would be preferable.
Thank you all for your awesome input!

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.

I know this thread is a few months old, but I've been digging into info about heritage breeds lately and thought I'd throw out there that if you're looking for a hardy goose that is literally named for the job it used to have weeding cotton fields, you might consider the cotton patch goose.  (I'm actually trying to hatch some American Buff Goose eggs right now, but the idea of a goose specifically for weeding made me think of the cotton patch - even if other breeds might work too.)

And while we're throwing out suggestions for sheep instead of geese, I might as well toss one in there for the gulf coast sheep.  Very good foragers, incredible resistance to parasites, do well with weather extremes, just turn them loose on a field or forest and let them do their sheep thing.

Hoping to pick up the first ones to start our own little flock in the next week or two.

I´d love to hear an update on what you ended up choosing (if you ever did). Geese are certainly excellent foragers when it comes to grass, but I don´t think they would help with the poison ivy. As mentioned above, the cotton patch goose could be a good option, plus they´re on the livestock conservatory threatened list.

I've had feelers out for Cotton Patch geese and a friend who wants some Gulf Coast sheep. If anyone has a good/reliable supplier of either, I would love to know about them!

I have a small gaggle of the African Geese, spoiled honkers that they are and, from all my reading plus the experiments I've been doing with my most recent goslings, it takes time to teach them how to do their job as weeders. All geese have the skill sets, and if you can keep them from eating the plants you want to keep, they will do an equally great job. I think the "purpose" is just that the Cotton Patch geese were selected for a good size to fit in the rows, a tendency to avoid actual cotton (or corn, sorghum, beans, strawberries, tobacco, ...), and a more moderate and quiet demeanor.

Having never met a Cotton Patch goose, that's mostly speculation.

Putting an untrained/untaught goose in with plants you want to keep seems a sure way to end the day with a lot of frustration and cussing (if you're the type). One of my geese developed an interest in and subsequently dug up and ate about 15 strawberry plant crowns from my patch before I got the fence up. I had thought the largest damage would potentially be from chickens.

Silly me. Never underestimate a goose.
They still haven't eaten any of the poison ivy, but they're doing a much better job of staying away from it this year.

The few escapees from my neighbor's goats have shown an interest in the poison ivy on that fence line and made a bit of a dent, but I can't say for definite if the goat kids in the side yard are the reason why there's less poison ivy there. I wouldn't want them (goat kids) near anything that might be tastier to them for fear of losing next year's crop of perennial shrubbery, but confined grazing of goats or sheep under a watchful eye or on a lead to restrain them from going someplace they shouldn't should work.
Again, pure speculation on my part.

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!