About keeping geese

What do they need?

Geese can be excellent pets, guardians and lawn mowers and they are not difficult to keep - provided you have the right conditions.

Water

Geese are waterfowl, and they need to bathe in clean water every day. A stream, or a pond large enough to have bacterial breakdown of waste, is ideal. If this is not possible, geese will be quite happy with a container of water large enough for them to get into and splash, if it is emptied and refilled every day.

Grass

Geese are herbivores, and their main food should be grass and clover, supplemented by waterfowl pellets (particularly in the breeding season January - June, when they need more protein and calcium) and corn.

Company

Geese are social animals and need to live with at least one other goose. Geese mate for life approximately as humans do, i.e. they tend to form long-term pairs but will also consider other arrangements. Ganders will usually fight each other in the breeding season if kept with females, although sometimes two ganders will team up with a female in a breeding group, and gay gander pairs can also be happy together.