Geese as LGD's?

[laughaha]

I have a pair of Toulouse Geese as the bodyguards for my chickens, and this is working AMAZING for the last year. I haven't lost a chicken to a predator in the year that I've had the geese. It's not so much that the geese protect the chickens, as much as the geese don't want anything abnormal around their home and go on attack mode on everything except the chickens and me.

Could I do the same thing with the goats? Would their be a health risk involved?

I would prefer to use geese as they can basically live off of grass, whereas LGD's are large dogs and I buy taste of the wild dogfood (ridiculously expensive but my dobe has allergies) and I don't like the thought of feeding the cheap dogfood as it's no where near as good as this dogfood (ingredients wise). I'm thinking if the geese are raised with the goats, they would be fine together and I wouldn't have to feed the geese very much.

[KSALguy]

you have been VERY lucky with your chickens, geese are NOT protectors, if a dog or coyote or bob cat comes along they will get a nice goose dinner and then move on to the goats,

[pourfolkes]

My geese let me know when something unusual in the yard, but they are not predator deterents, I have lost a couple to predators, at least before I got my LGDs.

[copperpennykids]

Besides, I'm afraid of geese! LOL

[laughaha]

My geese were raised with the chickens, so they are family and as such ignored. You're right, pourfolkes, they are great alarm systems!! The geese don't so much as protect the chickens as defend their territory. I don't think they'd care if something killed the chickens as long as it didn't happen in their territory (which is as far as a goose can see). I don't really expect a goose to protect the NGD's from a pack of dogs or coyotes, just one really annoying dachshund that I don't trust- the NGD's will be locked up at night (our coyotes seem to be nocturnal, the only one I've ever seen was dead and we don't have packs of dogs running around out here- too many farmers would shoot them). Can't kill the dog cuz it's BIL's, but it learned (the hard way) that my heavyweight defenders were much bigger and stronger than the chickens it had been killing. Just a little worried that it will hurt the NGD's cuz they are so small.

[laughaha]

I'm the only one allowed in the chicken pen- which is nice cuz I don't have kids going into the pen and chasing the chickens anymore (cuz they want to hold them- I love my nephews, I love my nephews....)

[saanengirl]

There are two things I would worry about when housing poultry with goats. One is the annoyance factor of your goats testing positive for TB because of Avian TB (which is totally harmless), and then having to have them re-tested to discriminate that from Bovine TB (which is the dangerous kind). The second is the possibility of your goats, particularly the kids picking up bacterial infections due to the geese getting into water troughs and defecating there. My mother had several puppies get sick one year from being housed in the same area as ducks.

[laughaha]

Thanks saanengirl, that was the kind of information I was needing to know.

[R.Adams]

We used to have geese in with our goats and saanengirl is right. They crap in the water tubs awful and then the goats won't drink the water (can you blame them though)?

[issylthesthlia]

I live in the city. We had a goose and three ducks and fourteen chickens.

Last year, overnight, we lost them ALL to ONE coyote who jumped our six foot fence. The goose was the first to go.