this REALLY should be illegal

ross · Post by **ross** » Sat May 14, 2016 10:56 pm

That's why I don't live in cities Sue , there for people . lol Luck
Cholera in wild geese in permanent close quarters like parks , city yards etc is a disease they get . Plus the goose goop , killing grass etc . Personally when a situation like that takes over I agree no taking eggs , no relocation , cull as yu do at home & feed to the needy . Pick me . My opinion . Luck

windwalkingwolf · Post by **windwalkingwolf** » Sun May 15, 2016 4:29 am

I, for one, have issues with killing babies. No, hear me out. I get that an egg is not necessarily a baby, I've been keeping poultry and eating eggs a long time lol. Eggs are potential food for me and my family, and each one is precious, either just as an egg, or to be incubated for future food or for laying or breeding future food. Eggs are NEVER discarded. Not ever. If they are old/broken/rotten/in over abundance for us to eat or for chickens to hatch, they are cooked and fed back to the birds or pigs or dogs; or if rotten they are smashed on the ground for same to peck at. Nothing wasted. But I will go out of my way to incubate eggs or try to save eggs from an abandoned nest, not matter the species. That's just me, I'm the same way with vegetable seed...I keep em all. plant em all, and when time comes to thin the veggies, I take the weak straggly plants and replant them. I may be a little OCD lol.

I don't think it should be *illegal* to kill goose eggs, but, like Muscovies in the southern states and middle americas, it's a pointless waste of time, money, and FOOD. The geese will just set another nest elsewhere. Pencil-pushing university-grad ecologists will tell you that shaking eggs laid in March will make a lick of difference in the goose population in the future. It won't. Adults live and breed for 40 years or more, and many will happily set a second nest in a given year if the first nest is compromised. The second nest will be in a place the well-meaners won't find, and it will be warmer time of year so more goslings will survive in any case.
Just eat the darn things for pete's sake--both eggs and geese. It's not OK to toss them bread and scraps and then whine that they're

ing on the beaches. People are a huge part of the problem--the people that feed them, and the people that think they should be exempt from hunting laws. Usually the two are the same people.
I've been listening to the farmer in back of my land, daily trying to drive the geese off his fields, with air horns, beagles, and gunshots. The noise makes me a little nuts. He's making a lot of noise but not getting a lot of results. My dog went and tried to hump one of his in-heat beagles and he had a fit. I may have dressed him down a little.
The geese literally stop short at my fence line, though there are hundreds on HIS bean and corn fields. They don't come onto my land of hay fields or gardens, despite us not harassing them like he does. The reason? If I tell my dog to "get it" when there's a goose or fox or whatever in the garden, he doesn't whine or bark or bay, he's off like a shot, silent as midnight, and does his job. That one death is seen and/or smelled by others of its kind and they stay clear.
If there's a goose problem (there is), stop whining about it, stop setting up committees to address the problem, stop spending tax dollars on said committees. Eat the f***ing things, and while you're at it, clean the goose crap off the beaches instead of hoping someone else will, or just put on a pair of old shoes for pete's sake. Before I call the Whaaaambulance. Death by Canada Goose = no one, ever. It runs at you, stand still, it backs off. Not a liability, except maybe if someone slips in poo. But food? heck yes. Eat em. Eat em all.

goatgal35 · Post by **goatgal35** » Sun May 15, 2016 7:29 am

Thank you windwalkingwolf well said. I sure hope I can make it to the picnic to meet you. You sound like an awesome lady.

Bayvistafarm · Post by **Bayvistafarm** » Sun May 15, 2016 8:34 am

I don't think it should be illegal. Especially in parks/cities where people/pets/and especially children can come in contact with their feces.

Thousands of them live right next door, on a fairly large pond. They seriously pecked and ate our winter wheat to the ground, in a 25 acre field, looking like they destroyed the thing. It was totally brown all fall/winter... seeing only dirt, where you should have seen green short rows going into winter. The roots however, stayed intact, unless its weeds growing out there now. 75% was eaten. Yields for sure, will suffer.

But... thats what happens when geese do what geese do. Deer take EASILY 5 acres of corn around here, around the bush. The first 8 rows yield nothing. Birds help... and I've even seen coyotes jump up, and grab and eat the ears.

Pesky wildlife, lol.

Skinny rooster · Post by **Skinny rooster** » Sun May 15, 2016 9:21 am

That article, I'm sorry... but is just garbage, designed to get people in a complete state of hysterics. I could see if someone ran up to a nest of hatching eggs and started killing them but eggs just fresh is something else. Trauma, really... what is the blanking things going to go into therapy, does anyone here really think that this never happens in nature? I can't tell you how many times I watched nature shows where the fox, coyote, raccoon turns to camera and says, "I was about to eat those eggs but that would cause too much stress and trauma for the parents, you know because nature didn't let them evolve with a way to cope with it". We screwed up their breeding habits, their predators, their territory so we are the ones to manage it. Even here for instance, the numbers are so high that for the first time in the history of this farm, Canada geese are living in a very small pond near our house. It's actually too small for them but what is worse is they have driven off very rare black ducks who have nested for generations in the pond, their numbers are endangered. I let a hunter shoot some last fall and they never returned until this spring, so I will agree with the hunting part. Just to let some of the people here know, I didn't like doing that, I am not cold I love nature but when... 75 start to show up in your barn yard, that's not one bird.

ross · Post by **ross** » Sun May 15, 2016 10:08 am

Glad to see common sense prevails here on PTO . Luck

Post by **Home Grown Poultry** » Sun May 15, 2016 10:26 am

we also have to remember that if these Canada geese have ever come in contact with Avian Influenza that they are carriers for life. if we walk or drive through an area filled with waterfowl we need to remember our biosecurity practices, clean n disinfect your foot attire before leaving the area or getting into your vehicles and then clean your tires before entering your property. I use a stick to clean my shoes and then hand sanitizer to sterilize when out. I will clean my tires at the end of my laneway with my hose and then bleach in a spray bottle then pull forward a bit n repeat. the uv rays from the sun will kill the virus eventually, fresh crap will carry it. and never wear your foot attire you wear to care for your birds off the farm.

just a friendly reminder for all us poultry keepers...