Archive for April, 2011

Keeping the grass fresh in the goose pen

Posted in Farming, Geese, Grazing on April 27th, 2011 by Nathan – Be the first to comment

March 6th, 2011 Grazed & brown goose paddock next to fresh & green paddock.

I love grass. It feeds the animals and keeps things nice & clean. The geese love it too, and will eat it down to the roots if they are on it long enough.

The challenge is: How do you keep fresh grass around a nesting goose, without moving the nest? I do it by putting the nesting shelter in the middle to the paddock, and then splitting the paddock in half with a temporary fence. When it’s time to shift the geese to the other side, I move the temporary fence over to the other side of the nest. This puts the nest on the “green” side of the paddock without having to relocate the eggs or the sitting bird. read more »

Eagles love to eat ducks

Posted in Ducks, Farming, Predators on April 14th, 2011 by Nathan – Be the first to comment

Can you find the eagle in the tree?

It’s not uncommon for us to have eagles come by, but we got to know one up close & personal last week.

Most of our ducks are penned up in 5′ x 10′ open bottomed pens.  They get moved to fresh grass every day, but they don’t get to run free.  Our runner ducks are the exception.  They are too high strung & intelligent to be happy in a pen.  They are excellent foragers, and do a great job on holding the slug & bug populations down on our place.  At night, they are closed up for protection against raccoons, but at first light, they have been free to roam….    But not any more!

On Monday we heard the geese making a terrible noise.  When Kathy and I went out to see what was the problem, we discovered an eagle had decided to breakfast on one of these free range runner ducks. read more »