Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Fish Feed and Geese

We are having a problem with geese around the feeder. They show up and eat probably half the feed, and then poop it all over the grass.

Is there a sinking feed we could use to keep them from getting to it? I'd love to eliminate the geese, but it's in a subdivision, so we are limited on our tactics for goose control.

Thanks for any advice.

I think you really have to do everything possible to make the geese go away.

A dog is probably the best. If someone in the neighborhood doesn't mind walking the dog a few times a day in that area, or even better allow the dog to relocate closer to the pond in someone else's back yard during daylight hours for a week will do the trick. Harass them constantly and they leave. The advantage of using a lab or retriever as the dog of choice is that they chase them out in the water a little ways too to further harass them. If they stay in the pond at night you can strobe a bright flashlight at midnight in their eyes to further harass them.

Geese still come at or just after dawn to my pond a few mornings a week and try to stick around but if you run them off daily they give up and stay away. Of course that is more difficult for a secluded pond with no neighbors and one that you can't visit or monitor daily.

you can try flashing lights, fishing line strung up in strategic places, the chemical solutions that make the grass burn their feet, etc.

plinking them with non-lethal airsoft or bb guns might work in a subdivision too.

Others have suggested a alligator decoy. The home owners might get a chuckle out of that and it may actually work too.

You could also use a fishing rod with 20# line and a heavy floating lure with hooks removed to prevent from hooking a goose. Practice your casting and try to put the line over as many geese as possible.

At a pound of poop per goose per day, that's a LOT of nutrients going into the pond to grow algae and other undesirables........

I like the airsoft idea, but only if all the people that could see you are with the program. They are pretty durn accurate out to 30-40 yards, at least the one that I played with.

I really really really like this idea! Just think of the fight you'd have on yer hands if that line got snagged under a feather or two!....I'm thinking 30# line!

Dang Esshup! You may have just invented the next great water sport!

I may have to try the hookless lure to run them off. I'd love to do the airsoft, but it's a park area in the neighborhood, and someone would freak out.

Since it is a rather crowded park area, I think it is a lost cause unless you can get public officials to get behind the removal efforts. On a remote private pond, a shotgun works well.

How about a sling shot with plastic pellets. Non-lethal but I bet it would "harass" a goose like crazy!

Just had this idea and now I think I will get a sling shot for my use around here. They make some pretty darn good ones that should work on cormorants, geese, GBH.....

A heavy lead sinker might make an even better impression on the goose if you hit it.

There is sinking 32% catfish food. You might only have to feed it till the geese migrate away.

This is exactly why you don't want geese on your pond. Dam things are a fricken nuisance and if and when they figure out they don't have to be afraid of you then your in big trouble cause dam near nothing will scare them off.

Did I mention I HATE geese!!

RC

After seeing an explosion of Eurasian Water Milfoil in my pond a year after a flock of about 40 made it their home for a few days I have a permanent "no vacancy" sign out.

+1 to that. A few days of geese and I'm out $$$ and spending 2 years trying to eradicate Eurasian Milfoil.

I'm surprised someone hasn't made pelletized food that can be left on the banks of the pond that geese can eat and can get a serious stomachache. Maybe some pelletized cajun crawfish boil with a few ghost peppers built in?

For the member asking about how to control in a park or urban area, I wonder if the motion activated sprinklers that are used for deer control would work. The kids at the park would think it is fun to have a sprinkler swivel around autoomatically and hose them down too I would think

You know they would not be so abundant if they tasted good at all. There is nothing about there meat that is good at all.... unless your into liver. The best description of taste I can give is that it tastes just like liver.

We are lucky that any Geese want to leave right away when we walk out to the pond.

Cheers Don.

At one time, Canadian geese were very few in number. I never saw one when I was growing up in the 1960's. They only became common around here about 40 years ago.

How about a sling shot a pair of eye protection and gloves and a few M60 fire crackers... lol Sling them out there at them. They may do the trick!! You pull it back have someone to light it and let er rip!! Heck that sounds like fun just talking about it!! LOL Or make a PVC tube gun and put some bottle rockets on the end of it and light em up!!

RC

Give the kids a remote control car/truck. Disguise it with a fox head or something. Some of those kids can steer those high speed RC vehicles faster than you can see. Have them chase the geese around and make them leave. If they go in the water, fire up the RC boat and continue the chase around the pond.

Or buzz them with a Radio control helicopter or drone. Those drone engines and the RC engines have a very annoying whine to them.

buzz them with those RC flying machines every night for a while. Then record the engine sounds and all you have to do is play the sound back through a boom box and when they hear that whine coming closer and closer they will head for cover!

The drone may be the best 'non-lethal' idea I've heard in a while.

I agree hopefully they wouldn't attack it!! LOL

RC

How expensive are they?

If I buy one, I'm going straight to air-to-sea battle...full on.

Little drones, easy for kids to fly, maybe 6" from propeller to propeller (4 engines) are like $25. They have stabilizers that make them easy to fly.. They have flashing blue/red LEDs that might help in low light conditions to fly it. The think you have to worry about is that the batteries are Lithium. When they are ready to die they give you NO warning (outside the controls get sluggish, you can't climb as easily, etc) and then when the batteries die they drop out of the sky. You would not want to be over the pond when that happens. But they would be great fun for geese on land.

Some of the cheap little ones also have a tiny water reservoir and shoot water out of the front. Kind of a novelty thing for fun with kids but it is an additional surprise coming out of this buzzing blinking thing coming straight at you.

The bigger drones ramp up in price and I don't have a lot of experience with them. But the bigger ones have a feature that when battery is getting low they automatically return to the base where you took off from to make sure they set down safely.

Don't feed in the mornings, and just late in the afternoon after they have flown off. If they are resident geese........good luck.

Thanks for all the ideas. It is a private park in the neighborhood, so we just have to worry about keeping the residents happy. We've had pretty good luck with roman candles, but we got some complaints. I'd love to do the airsoft thing, that would be fun. We may look at an RC boat or drone.

The local government may help you. Some have had nuisance geese extermination programs to promote the health of local water and residents. Excessive numbers of geese have caused e coli shutdowns of swimming beaches.