Geese's Diet

Geese can forage for all of their food

According to the University of Minnesota, geese are raised in nearly all parts of the United States. They total about 0.2 percent of the poultry population in the US. Geese have straightforward care requirements, and learning more about their diet and nutrition needs is an important step for prospective geese owners.

Features

Geese are not vegetarians. Though their diet is primarily made up of grain and greens, they will also eat slugs, snails, small frogs and worms. They are also known to eat small rodents, like mice and baby rats. In captivity, geese can forage in a pasture devoted to their feeding, they can be fed pellets, or they can thrive on a mixture of the two.

Goslings

Very young geese should be started on a pelted or crumbled starter feed for chicks. They need food available at all times, and they should also have access to grit, which will allow them to digest their food more effectively. They should be watered using troughs or pans that have wire guards, which will prevent them from sitting in the water and becoming chilled.

Size

If the geese are primarily going to be foraging for their food, an acre of pasture will support between 20 and 40 birds, depending on the size of the geese and the quality of the pasture. A wire fence that is at least 3 feet in height can confine the birds to their feeding area, and it will also prevent them from being easy targets for local predators.

Considerations

While geese are excellent foragers and can be expected to feed themselves from the pasture, they can also be picky about what they eat. If they have the option, they will reject tough grasses and alfalfa and instead search out clover, timothy hay, and orchard grass. Pastures with young grasses are ideal for geese.

Warning

In most cases, you will not be able to find feed designed for geese. For goslings, a chick starter feed that is 20 percent protein can be used until the chick is about three weeks old. At that point, they can be switched to a chicken grower pellet feed that has between 16 percent to 20 percent protein. When they are fully mature at six weeks, they can be fed common poultry pellets. While geese can be completely sustained by a good pasture, the grass should be cut at around four inches, as longer, tougher grass can lead to crop binding and death.

References

• University of Minnesota Extension: Raising Geese
• Raising Geese: Feeding Geese: How-to Feed Geese Poultry Feed and Pasture
• Poultry Pages: Goose Facts
• Ashton Water Fowl: Keeping Geese