[bernie]

My father has a new wet weather waterfowl holding pond (thanks to the CRP program) and we have had a few ducks use it occasionally. We have very few Canada geese in eastern Arkansas and I would love to have some on the pond as a resident flock.
I know in some areas Canada geese are beyond nuisance and was curious if anybody new of a way to get some of the excess moved in. Sort of like the witness relocation program I guess.
While this seems like a goofy idea even to me, that does not mean that it is impossible.

Thanks.

[Stand_Watie]

Do Canada geese migrate through or to E. Arkansas? If so, it would seem to me that you'd want to try to attract them the same way as if you were wanting to hunt them.

I'm not a waterfowler myself, but it seems to me that getting the pond right with the appropriate amount of cover etc would be a good start, and and then perhaps try setting out decoys and "calling" them? I think they are still going to go north in the spring as inclined by nature though. My bird book says that they do winter in your Arkansas, so you might have good luck in the winter months.

I recently read that the largest problem with people losing waterfowl to predators is insufficient cover for them to sleep in at night.

You can buy Canada geese from murray mcmurray, but at 90 bucks a pair I doubt you'd want to. We used to keep Toulouse (that we bought from them) and they are much more reasonable (I just checked and they sell for seven bucks apiece). They get very large, and probably are more capable of defending themselves from smaller predators than Canada Geese, and are less likely to leave you of their own accord. We used a shotgun to kill them when we were ready to eat as they were really too big to just snatch up and decapitate like you would a chicken. Here I am with one of them (probably 25 lbs?) about 20 years ago.

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=850287

[Snake Eyes]

Put out some Molson and back bacon. Maybe some cheese. Run an extension cord to an old TV and VCR and play hockey tapes.

They'll come.

[dakotasin]

while it is true that whatever geese you manage to attract there most will leave to come north for the spring/summer, you can maintain 'resident' geese - geese that will stay there year-round.

not sure how to do it, but i think stand's suggestion is probably the best place to start. also, realize that canadian geese, despite being waterfowl, actually don't spend that much time on the water. maybe try calling them in and decoying them in, and make sure you have piles of corn, wheat, or maybe even soybeans pretty close.

if you call/bait them into a stocked field/pasture/whatever, they'll find your water close by, and maybe hang around - but it takes a pretty good sized body of water to support much more than a handful of geese. i'd say you should be happy if you could get a breeding pair to stick around - which will, naturally, lead to more geese.

i do know that cabela's in mitchell, sd had a pond built just for waterfowl, and they used decoys and corn, and now they have a pretty sizeable flock that stays there year-round. don't know if ice is a problem down there, but as long as there is open water around, the geese will be, too.

[Stand_Watie]

if you call/bait them into a stocked field/pasture/whatever, they'll find your water close by, and maybe hang around - but it takes a pretty good sized body of water to support much more than a handful of geese. i'd say you should be happy if you could get a breeding pair to stick around - which will, naturally, lead to more geese

This is kind of funny to me... I don't think they overwinter here in my part of east Texas, but I see them in the fall and spring for several weeks when they are migrating, and they land in my farm tank for a brief visit sometimes...anyway, I sometimes see them paddling about in six to ten inches of water in my neighbors flooded pasture/hayfields. Kind of funny to see ducks and geese swimming in what is normally a green pasture.

To my unprofessional eye it looks like they are eating a lot of grass and other green stuff.

Toulouse geese (I don't know about Canada geese, but wouldn't be surprised if they were similar) BTW, are pretty aggressive about defending their nests from people, so you might want to give them a wide berth if you get a pair and they are nesting. They aren't really enough of a menace to give you more than a good pinch, but if you have small kids they're liable to get terrorized by the geese if they get too close.

[Larry Ashcraft]

To my unprofessional eye it looks like they are eating a lot of grass and other green stuff.
Correct. Geese are primarily grazing birds. They much prefer grass, wheat or alfalfa fields to cornfields.

You could call the Denver City Park. They are overrun with Canadas. :D

[bernie]

Canada geese do migrate through our area in the winter. However, the only places that you can really count on seeing the migratory ones on a regular basis, is around where there are resident geese.

It does get cold enough here to freeze up the water for several days or even a couple of weeks at a time.

As far as the habitat, it is about a 4 acre pond surrounded by pasture and woods.

[JohnBT]

You want resident Canada Geese?

You'll be sorry, but please come here and get all you want. Stinky, nasty, destructive poop machines. A bunch of us used to fish the James River here in the heart of Richmond for smallmouth and catfish, but the geese took over. No more wading out into the rapids and rockhopping now. They're too slippery for walking and lord knows you can't sit on a rock covered in thick stinky goo.

John

[Byron Quick]

I don't know how you'd catch them alive and undamaged but come to where I live. There's a beaver pond in a swamp right across the road and you can hear them raising hell all year long. It's in the city limits so no one is hunting them.

Waynesboro, Georgia is 30 miles south of Augusta which is just about where most winter storms turn to rain. We might get an ice storm every few years, or weather cold enough to form up to an inch of ice on still water. But that is rare.
A quarter of an inch is more likely for a day or three.

In the last nine years of deer hunting from late October to around Jan. 10 we've had exactly one snowfall that lasted a week.

I thought I'd be able to track deer movement patterns around the place. I didn't see a single track in over a week. The deer didn't know what that white stuff was and they weren't about to go walking in it.:D

[Nathanael_Greene]

Any golf course, cemetery, or upscale neighborhood (big yards) in the Chicago area is just about paved with Canada geese year round these days.

And the forest preserves are full of deer, too.

[Sparky]

Watch out what you wish for!
We've got thousands of Giant canadas around here that are year round residents. They move around a bit , but don't migrate at all.
Geese are messy buggers! There are several golf courses that have really interesting goose problems( read goose poop)
I think a 10 pound goose excretes 15 pound of goose poop a day!
They'll eat your lawn to ruination.
I guess they are sort of a winged hog.

Be very careful what you wish for!

[Sunray]

"...a resident flock..." No you don't. Canada geese are very, big, aggressive, birds. Five to six foot wing spans isn't unusual. They don't like people or their pets either. A PO'd goose can break your leg with its wing. If you, your kids or Fido get anywhere near a gosling, you're in for trouble. Ma and Pa goose will attack.
The phrase 'Excrement through a goose' is true. Every 5 minutes whether they need it or not. In Toronto, there are so many Canada geese, of both types, living in the waterfront parks and the Toronto Islands(also a park), you can slide from one end to the other on the droppings.

[bernie]

We do have geese come through every year. Snow geese in the millions pass through and they are a good hunt. So I am familiar with geese, and what they do. I field where several thousand geese overnight will look like an oversized hog wallow the next morning. Also, the pond in question, is nowhere near any building, much less a house. It is in the middle of a large CRP field and there are only critters around it. So no danger to house or household from crap machines with a bad attitude.

[Stand_Watie]

"...a resident flock..." No you don't. Canada geese are very, big, aggressive, birds. Five to six foot wing spans isn't unusual. They don't like people or their pets either. A PO'd goose can break your leg with its wing. If you, your kids or Fido get anywhere near a gosling, you're in for trouble. Ma and Pa goose will attack.
The phrase 'Excrement through a goose' is true. Every 5 minutes whether they need it or not. In Toronto, there are so many Canada geese, of both types, living in the waterfront parks and the Toronto Islands(also a park), you can slide from one end to the other on the droppings.


Aptly named then, aren't they? Maybe I should be glad that the vast majority of Geese I see coming by this way are several thousand feet off the ground, flying in v's, honking like crazy. Try not to think of goose poop as feces...think of it as slightly digested grass...it might make stepping in in more pleasant.

Geese are awfully tasty though...and have enormous eggs that are quite good to eat too...they even make good watchdogs from my experience.

[foghornl]

Come up to Cleveland, and you can have all you can catch.

Somebody mentioned that a 10-Lb goose puts out 15 Lbs of resi-doo-doo. Not quite the correct ratio, more like a 10-Lb goose puts out 150 Lbs of 'stuff' per day.

[Ktulu]

Come up to Cleveland, and you can have all you can catch.

Same here in Michigan. They are so plentiful they're a nuisance.

[SDC]

You could call the Denver City Park. They are overrun with Canadas. :D


Hell, you could come up here and take your pick; they're always crapping all over everything, and I sure wouldn't miss one (might be a little large for carry-on, though :) )

[mamba]

LOL....I thought I was the only one who hated these rats with wings! You can't even walk on the sidewalks because of them. What your suggesting would be like wishing for a plague of locust, only worse.... :fire:

[VonFatman]

Around here...it's sooooo easy to get a pond to hunt Canada Geese...people who used to put up buckets so they would nest over now beg hunters to shoot them! I like it!

If you have a lot of tall grass....geese won't hang....they like short green grass and the tall stuff hides the preditors that would take their young'ns.

If you have CRP, you probably can't mow the grass short. As long as you have tall grass...the geese will most likely pass your pond by.


Good luck.

Bob