Jump to content
BC Boards

Farm geese?


silhouettestable
 Share

Recommended Posts

Do many people keep geese to use for herding practice instead of sheep? I'd like to have something at home for the dogs to work but I'm not sure I really want to get sheep, so I was wondering about geese. Setting up for sheep would involve a lot more, the fencing I have for my horses just wouldn't cut it, and they're on 24/7 turnout just with run-in sheds so I'd also have to set up housing for sheep. Also I'd rather be bringing in less hay each year, not more as I don't usually have a lot of help getting it and I have a bad back and bad shoulder. I'm thinking geese might be more suitable for me and could maybe be put into my chicken coop, or with my one peacock. Would that be likely to work, or would geese be aggressive with the other birds? Would one breed of goose be preferable to others? Do they typically breed easily and raise young each year (that could be marketed) or if you want to raise them are you better to buy goslings to raise (like buying day old meat chicks)?

Lots of questions I know. :rolleyes: My dogs love the time they spend with sheep and Storm especially wants to work all the time. He's always trying to help me out at the chicken coop. I haven't yet taken my meat chickens for processing and right now there's a temporary divider between them and the turkeys. The turkeys jump up on it to roost at night and some of them always end up on the wrong side of the fence. Storm will put them back in where they belong for me, and also usually some of the meat chickens slip out into the part of the coop that my layers are in when I'm going back and forth between the 2 sections, so next he puts them back where they belong. He's very keen and I'd like to be able to do more with him. Also, I'd like to get into doing goose control, would working geese at home be likely to be a help or hindrance when it comes to doing that? Just thinking that domestic geese may act quite different than the wild ones and maybe that would get confusing for the dogs?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have never used geese for herding practice. My dogs have been fully trained on stock first before I take them to geese. I want to be very certain that the dogs have their commands and are fully under control before I take them out to do goose work. I don`t know what the result would be if you only worked geese or ducks. I have tried ducks and my youngest dog Dave who is not yet trained will herd them around all day if I let him but that does not make him a goose dog. He does not fully have his commands and at the moment I could not trust him to go to work in public. I only use him at the moment in very controlled situations where I am able to work close to him. There are a number of key differences between farm and wild geese. Farm geese will stay which makes them a herding target, just something for the dogs to push around and they have little other value in training. The dogs will not develop much more than a walk-up. Wild geese of course leave, they are able to fly and the dogs see them in very different ways. In real life goose work you are often working and long distances and the dogs will require an out-run to get to them effectively. I also quite often work large flocks of up to 1000 birds and this presents a number of problems where stock training comes in handy.

I have a suggestion. I am not sure how your dogs are trained at the moment, you have mentioned working sheep. See if you can find a local golf course, private property would be a good idea, that has geese and ask the super if you can work on them with the dogs. Most supers who have geese do not have a problem with getting rid of them. This will give the dogs a chance to experience their future working environment and you a chance to see how things unfold in goose work. I think you are wise to continue to work sheep and get the dogs very solid on commends. The one thing that is common in goose work no matter where you are and what location that you are working is that the dogs need to be under your complete control and rock solid at all times.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sillhouette,

Are you asking about training for stockwork? If so, I think most people prefer to use ducks rather than geese. Geese are noisy, make a lot more mess, and can be aggressive toward people. I would think ducks would be perfectly suitable for training a dog and would be a lot more pleasant to have around.

 

Whatever stock you choose to train on, goose control is rather different from normal stockwork. In normal stockwork, the idea is to control and contain the stock. In goose control, the idea is to chase the geese off. Two very different things.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't done any goose control (yet) but I have had ducks and geese and started dogs on them. Geese can be aggressive to dogs if they sense any uncertainty. I'd start with ducks first. Geese are nice though once you get the dog going. They can move along a little faster than most ducks. And I've taught dogs to drive, pen, flank and everything I do with sheep with geese. Geese are also grazing animals and if you have the setup, you can teach outruns.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry if I was unclear in my earlier post. Two of my dogs have already been started on sheep at a friend's, but it's not really close so at most I go once a week. I'd like to have more opportunity to work with the dogs at home. I'm not talking about stockwork as in trialling or anything like that, it's more about having some kind of stock that I can use to work on their commands etc., ultimately for doing goose control. I have had the opportunity to take them out to wild geese a few times on a couple of private properties and they've done well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...