chickens vs. geese…

 

if you live outside of the city limits, and are looking to raise some birds, you might be wondering if you should begin with geese or chickens (or both!) as you begin your homestead.

here’s a few things that we’ve learned about chickens and geese, and hopefully we can provide some insight and help you make the choice that is best for you and your life!

self-sufficiency–winner: it’s a tie!

• geese and chickens are both great at scrounging up food to eat. geese go for grass and greenery and chickens eat greenery and any random bugs, seeds, and tidbits they can find.

ability to protect themselves/immunity to predation— winner: geese!

• geese win this one, by a long shot! our geese have never been threatened by any predators, unlike the chickens. geese are so much bigger and they are excellent at ganging up on a potential threat and flogging them (sometimes to death). chickens simply think of themselves and run, although depending on predator size, a rooster might do a nice job protecting his hens. geese are a formidable threat, and since they operate as a team, they are far more frightening!
• even if you have a mostly predator-proof chicken house, if you ever let your chickens roam free, there is a chance a hawk could swoop in for the kill. you also have to be sure to safely secure your chickens at night, but not your geese. we often close the geese in their simple pen at night, but the cage is by no means completely predator proof (it doesn’t need to be!) and sometimes the geese even spend the night out in the yard.

intelligence–winner: geese!

• the geese are, by far, smarter than the chickens. you can tell that they are greater strategists, have better memories, and are much less frantic when escaping human contact. the geese will look inquiringly at something new, craning their necks around, whereas the chickens will either run from it or peck it. on a related note, the chickens are much less social with each other than the geese, and you can really see the link between intelligence and having a more complex social communication.

personality–winner: geese!

• largely due to their intelligence, the geese have much more entertaining personalities. jason and i feel that they are similar to dogs since each goose has their own fun attitude and temperament. they act offended when they don’t get their favorite food, sometimes follow us around like dogs, and even honk at us when we get home as though they’re bolt greeting us at the door.
• we’ve decided that the coolest thing ever is going to be letting our future kids raise a few goslings and letting them imprint on them. then they’ll having a fantastic, protective companion to follow them around!

body size (for meat purposes)–winner: geese!

• although goose meat is different than chicken, you’re going to get twice or three times as much meat from a goose!

egg laying–winner: chickens!

• geese lay large eggs, but they taste different than chicken eggs and since they taste so rich, you might not want to eat them everyday. chicken eggs are great for so many things in the kitchen, and to cook a large goose egg you really need to be committed to getting stuffed!
• geese only lay during one season of the year, and chickens lay nearly all year round with a few slow-down periods in production.

space needed–winner: chickens!

• since geese are so much larger and really need a lot of grassy pasture if you plan to fatten them up for cheaper, chickens win in the space competition.

noisiness–winner: chickens!

• you might be surprised about this, but the geese are exponentially louder than our roosters. their honk has the weird ability to literally cancel out all noise in the vicinity. when i’m trying to talk and the geese start honking, i cannot hear any of the words coming out of my own mouth, even if i yell!

guardian ability–winner: geese!

• as i mentioned before, geese are good at watching each others’ backs, but they are also great alarms if a new person approaches your house… another way they’re like dogs! some geese (not ours) will even charge strange people and flog them until they leave. it all depends on what you want your geese to be and how you raise them (breed also matters, too). they can be anything from a warning system to an attacking flock!

overall, we recommend raising both geese and chickens, just like we recommend raising both standard and bantam chickens! each has their own pros and cons, so why not dive on in and reap the benefits of both?

.:.