My goose will eat grain and a little grass. I can't get it to eat much else. I've tried everything in Carla's book such as lettuce, potatoes, etc., to no avail. I'm not exactly sure of the grain content...my friend uses it on her farm for her chickens, turkeys, geese and what-have-you. Any ideas? Thanks!

-- Kelly (beerfarm@midtel.net), October 24, 2000

Answers

Kelly, Why would you want to feed it anything other than grass? We raise Super Grower White Embdens. They are alowed to "free-range" on grass around our house all day and in the evnings we feed them all just a little whole corn {may-be a cup for each goose}. We feed them that corn mainly just to get them in their pen at night. In the winter, when grass is sparse, feed them more corn. If you wanted to fatten them up for slaughter, you would give them as much corn as they want. But then who wants to eat a really fatty goose? Adrienne

-- Adrienne Grass (AdrienneA_Grass@hotmail.com), October 24, 2000.

Kelly,

During the warmer months, my ducks and geese free range and get all the grass and bugs they want. However, I feed them all non-medicated game and turkey pellets to supplement their diet. During the winter, I supplement the pellets with greens from the grocery store. I buy from Agway, a chain of feedstores in upstate NY. bluetick

-- bluetick (coonhound@mindspring.com), October 24, 2000.

Thanks for the replies. He (she?) won't eat bugs or slugs or worms, nothing like that. And he's handicapped (had a broken leg and limps) so he's definitely a pet. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be much of a forager. Although when he was at the farm temporarily while I moved, he was in with some turkeys and a couple of other geese. He seemed to do a little better foraging then. Maybe he needs some company. I don't know of any more geese (my friend at the farm butchered all hers) so would a chicken work? Thanks!

-- Kelly (beerfarm@midtel.net), October 24, 2000.

Hi Kelly, Your goose would probably be happier with another goose. They do seem to know that they are "different". My geese eat grass all summer long with free choice scratch , and get a multi-grain scatch in the winter with green scraps. They like cole crops (cabbage, broccoli, kale, etc) and tomatoes especially. Our local feed store has a mix for game birds that works well.

-- Peg (wildwoodfarms@hushmail.com), October 27, 2000.

Hi ,our ducks love to steal dogfood from the beagle,hasn't seemed to hurt them,they also get cracked corn and forage around free range.

-- julie (nelson3@bright.net), October 27, 2000.

we have two geese and we feed them corn meal....they like it a lot....we feed them that as much as they want then we let them out in the yard in their pen then we give them a little thing so they can swim in it.....we give them water also in a bowel...and they are only three days old and the are loving it :) brittany

-- brittany (adams1@ecompare.com), April 28, 2001.