Geese Food

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What Not to Feed Geese

First things first! Anything sweet... you know if it's bad for you, it's really bad for geese. No popcorn either; that's almost like feeding them styrofoam. Remember that geese cannot grasp their food like squirrels and raccoons do, so they can't shell peanuts or crack open seeds. They don't like nuts, fruits, canned foods, or anything that is cooked. Remember that geese do not have teeth like carnivores do. Hard breads, moldy, or stale breads are bad for them. Pizza is definitely out. I've seen people attempt to feed everything in this paragraph (and more) to geese, including twinkies and chocolate nutty buddies. Please don't use geese as a garbage can or a bad experiment. Appropriate food is available for them, and it's affordable, too.

What to Buy

As you probably know, geese eat mainly grasses and water plants. They also eat grains and seeds. The following foods are recommended for geese as supplements to their main diet:

Whole kernel corn (also called "wildlife food")
Cracked corn (is crushed whole kernel corn)
Hen scratch (is 80% cracked corn and 20% wheat)
Wheat bread

The first three corn-based foods come in 50 lb. bags. These bags have a plastic lining to keep the contents dry. The cost for whole kernel corn is around $7.25 per bag, which is 20% to 25% of the cost of buying bird or squirrel feed at Wal-mart. So, do yourself (and the geese) a favor— visit a feed store and stock up. Even just one bag can last a long time. Whole kernel corn is the main staple, but little goslings will need the cracked corn or hen scratch, instead. Hen scratch is around $8.75 a bag (about $1.50 more), so I reserve it for goslings or for a special treat—geese especially love cracked corn or hen scratch.

A bag of whole kernel corn (left) is smaller than a bag of hen scratch (right), even though both are 50 lbs. Whole kernels are more dense.

Geese will also eat bread, but I will add a caution here. Do not feed them a LOT of bread, because their stomachs are small. They can feel full, but can actually be malnourished because they need more nutritious food. They do love bread, no doubt. I generally wait until the afternoon to bring bread, giving them a chance to get more nutritious food in the morning.

Birdseed is okay if the geese will eat it from your hand (difficult to eat from the ground). But birdseed is relatively expensive, and the seeds are so small—it's really for small birds.

Where to Get It

Corn-based feed - Most feed stores will carry all three items listed. Duluth does not have a feed store (that I know of). Nearby Lawrenceville has several; I use the following:

Brownlee's General Store (see map below)
219 Hurricane Shoals Rd NE
Lawrenceville, GA
Ph. 770-963-0784

Wheat bread - Bread is very expensive when compared to animal feed. The best price I have found is at Aldi... 79 cents a loaf. You'll pay twice that or more at Wal-mart. Duluth has an Aldi store (across from Wal-mart) and Lawrenceville has one, too.

Directions: Take Duluth Highway (Ga 120) to Lawrenceville. After you cross over Ga 316, you'll see a big hospital on your right (just a landmark). Go a little further and turn left onto Hurricane Shoals Road. (There's a Folks Restaurant on the Corner.) Go a couple of miles and look for the general store on your left. It has a long front porch with a green roof. By the way, you'll pass Aldi on your way. It's on Georgia Hwy. 120 on your right, not far before you arrive at Hurricane Shoals Rd.

Where NOT to get it - Pet Smart is not a real feed store for farm animals. Their prices (per lb.) are very, very high; that's one clue. The second one is that they do not have a loading dock for customers.

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