Geese eating Ranunculus repens roots

Its cooling rather down quickly and my grasses are no longer stretching so eagerly to the sun and my geese are having to adjust their diets according. I have noticed over the last several days that they have started eating my creeping buttercup for the first time. I had tried to teach them to eat the greens. They aren't eating the greens.

What they are doing is tearing off the leaves and stems (chop and drop) and digging out around the roots which they seem to be eating. They basically are just mowing a small stand at once and then thinning the roots. Then they go to the grass patches again; clearing one area and leaving others for later - this is different from the free grazing they seemed to enjoy earlier in the year.

I have switched them to a three stage rotation. 1/4 acre of grass/nettle/buttercup 1/4 acre grass pasture/orchard and 1/2 acre grass and buttercup

Geese seem to be owl proof thus far.

Owl proof ? You must have big owls over there in the states I dont think Eagle owls would take a goose over here .

David

David Livingston wrote:Owl proof ?

Yeah but chickens sure aren't

Two months later, are there any (visuable) effects on the geese? Do they feed on any other unusuable eatebles?

Yep, the geese finally get around to eating ours in the fall, once the grass slows down and they are looking for new food sources. They ignore it the rest of the year.

Probably not too much own risk for geese around here, but the bald eagles will go after the smaller females if the ganders aren't nearby.

dirk, I haven't noticed them going after any thing else unusual this fall/winter. In the spring they where chowing down on Horse Tails (a succulent prehistoric looking fern) I've been feeding them cracked corn this past month or so though and that has probably stopped them from getting too creative in their foraging. No adverse effects from the creeping buttercup roots. So far nothing seems to bother the geese to much. I woke up one early morning 6 or so weeks ago with them in a standoff with a raccoon, but the raccoons didn't seem to want to risk it and I loosed the dog on it. Haven't seen um since

edited for spelling

Edit:

The geese are also the unwitting slaves of the dastardly cyanescen mushroom. They spent all fall eating grass and tearing up roots and thrashing their beaks and feathery faces around in grass patches with this unwanted invader growing in swaths. I fear they have spread them all over as I have much carbon in the form of snapped up branches and hacked up blackberry stalks laying around being slowly swallowed by grass.