How To Scare Off Geese
Scare tactics are particularly popular with landowners because geese can be easily frightened, be it any unknown object or noisemakers. However, this is a short-term solution and in order not to let geese get used to these devices, change their location from time to time. Also, take into consideration that you will have to get a special federal permit to be allowed to frighten nesting geese.
Nell Orscheln from the Clemson Extension Service suggests using noise-making devices only in sparsely populated areas, otherwise, loud noises may disturb the residents. Such techniques include pyrotechnics, screamers, firing blanks, air horns, whistles, as well as recorded goose distress calls. Be sure you follow the manufacturerâs instruction when using noisemakers as they may threaten the human health if handled improperly.
Propane cannons work by producing loud blasts and in the quantity of four items can protect an area of about twenty-five acres. Pyrotechnics should be fired to disturb a group of geese on land or water. Try recording and then playing back loud distress calls of the geese inhabiting the area. However, distress calls will work only when other methods are engaged so that geese will not habituate to them.
How To Keep Geese Off Your Lawn
No matter how much you love animals, if theyre destroying your lawn and leaving a mess of droppings everywhere, its time to take action. Geese, one of the most common offenders, can be difficult to deter because they typically stay in a given area for long periods.
They leave their droppings everywhere, waddle around with their beaks protruding and honking incessantly, looking for food.
This article will provide you with some quick and easy tips to help keep geese off your lawn. Well start with a few ways on how to keep goose of your lawn.
Then well move on to how to stop the geese from pooping in your yard. For the ultimate answer, check out our homemade goose repellant tips in this post.
Contents
How To Keep Geese From Pooping On Your Property
Goose droppings are a serious health hazard that must be avoided at all costs. Bird control experts advise a number of simple steps for making your yard an unattractive spot for geese to visit. Here are some of the most effective tips to keep geese out of your yard:
- Employ loud noises and flashing pinwheels to scare geese away.
- A short fence can prevent geese from walking onto your property.
- Official repellents like Bird B Gone and Flight Control can drive geese away.
- Grape Kool-Aid is a cheap repellent substitute you can spray on your yard.
- Geese hate methyl anthranilate which is found in grape Kool-Aid.
- Getting a dog or calling in a goose removal service can work wonders.
Remember that geese and other waterfowl are very aggressive birds. If you find they are terrorizing you or your loved ones, please call in professional help. That is the safest way to deal with these aquatic birds if they have proven to be a danger.
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Sonic Or Distress Call Noise Emitters
First, you have a sonic noise emitter. These produce a tone that isnt audible to people but irritates many animals, including geese and various other pests. However, its often unpleasant to pets, so it isnt ideal if you have an animal living in your home.
Second, there are goose distress call noise emitters. These create sounds that mimic a goose in trouble, such as after being attacked by a predator. With these, the hope is that other geese treat the noise as a warning to stay away, fearing that they may be harmed if they come too close.
Chase Geese Off Your Property
As easy as it sounds, you can chase geese off your property. Start by grabbing a broom or a baseball bat and start chasing after them. When chasing after geese, check for signs of aggression. Continue to chase the geese off your lawn consistently until they realize your backyard is not a safe place to stay in.
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Geese And Your Property
Few sights are as majestic as a flock of geese flying overhead in a large V-shaped pattern. Geese are beautiful creatures to watch and can signal the changing of the seasons as they migrate. While they are beautiful to watch soaring overhead, dealing with them on your property is another matter entirely.
A flock of geese will fight, poop, and honk all day, every day. If you own a golf course, restaurant, fitness center, apartment complex, or any other business where your grass and fields are directly tied to your income, having a flock of loud, messy birds is only going to hurt your business. And even if you don’t own a business, having geese make their home on your property is a surefire way to ruin your spring and summer afternoons .
Keep Geese Out Of The Water
To keep geese off your pond , consider constructing a system of suspended wires over the water to deny them access to the pond surface. Geese prefer to land and take off from open water. This works best for areas under one acre that are not used for other recreational purposes . Single strands of 14-gauge wire, 80- to 100-pound test monofilament fishing line, or stainless-steel cable should be strung on a grid pattern across the water with 10 to 15 feet between lines. Each line should be suspended 12 to 18 inches above the waters surface. Also, use perimeter lines to keep geese from walking in under the grid lines. Attach brightly colored flagging or tape to the lines to make them more visible.
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How To Keep Geese Out Of Your Yard
Whether you manage a residential, corporate or hospital property, Canada geese arelikely no stranger to your yard. These birds can be a big nuisance, showing aggressivebehavior, damaging your property and posing a variety of health risks to your tenants.Luckily, you have some options when it comes to keeping geese away.
A Few More Things You Should Know
We wanted to get straight to the point with this article, and thats why we got right into the thick of it and talked through a few of the best options available to you to keep geese off your lawn. But there are a few other key pieces of information that may help you.
- Prevention is Easier than Getting Rid Timing is everything here. If the geese have already built their nests in and around your lawn, youll have a much harder time getting them to leave. It depends where you are in the country, but nests are typically built somewhere between March and April, and once theyre built both males and females will defend them as though their lives depend upon it.
- NEVER Feed Them The last thing you want to do is make any geese feel like your property offers a reliable source of food, as thats an invitation they arent likely to pass up. This may sound obvious, but humans have somewhat of an obsession with feeding wildlife, even when theyre told not to. And while you might think youre being a good person and that its just this one time, the geese most certainly wont be thinking that. Theyll stick around for more!
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Reflective Tape Streamers Or Dcor
If the geese cant determine that the flashes of light arent a threat, they will often move onto a property that feels less risky. While it may not work as well as a predator decoy, it can be a solid alternative for spots where using decoys isnt practical or attractive.
However, you do want to make sure to move the items around on occasion. Otherwise, geese may view their relatively stationary position as a sign that they arent a threat, making the items ineffective.
What Keeps Geese Away
One of the best products you can use to keep geese away is a Liquid goose protection. These EPA-approved liquid deterrents use food-grade ingredients like grape seed extract to irritate geese. As the geese feed on the applied grass, they are driven away by the irritation associated with the spray.
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Youre Not Doing Enough To Chase Them Away
When geese walk into your yard, and you dont chase them away, then youre encouraging them to stop by more often.
However, if you make them feel unwelcomed, chances are they wont like to stop by your yard over time.
So, start chasing geese away, but ensure that you or whatever means youre using doesnt lead to the birds demise.
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The Problems They Cause
If you are looking for solutions for your goose problem, you are already aware of some of the issues they can cause. The primary reasons you don’t want geese on or around your property include the following:
- A flock of geese can easily over-graze a lawn or field, leaving the entire area barren and lifeless. If you own a golf course, park, or other outdoor area, a flock of geese can easily render the area useless or damaged. Re-seeding and repairing the damage can cost thousands of dollars and is not a permanent solution .
- Geese are aggressive during mating season and while protecting their young. Adult geese will chase people, pets, and anything that happens to approach their territory. If this is happening on or around your business, it’s certain that customers will be scared away.
- Geese areprolific producers of waste. Not only are their droppings large and messy, butthey produce a rotten smell that can travel for hundreds of feet and makeliving, standing, eating, or shopping nearby very miserable.
- A flock of geese is loud no matter what type of business you own or where you live, the noise a flock of geese makes will be a nuisance and distracting.
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Tall Grass And Shrubs
Geese like short, lush, mowed grass. They need space to land and take off, and are also uncomfortable feeding in areas where their view of potential predators is poor. Allowing grass to grow to a height of a foot or more will reduce the attractiveness of the area to feeding geese. If geese are walking onto your lawn from a pond, let the vegetation along the shore of the pond grow tall, plant shrubbery, or create a stone barrier along the shoreline. Planting shrubs and small trees interspersed throughout a feeding area can be very effective.
Use Soundto Frighten Geese
Another great way to have your goose problem solved is to use loud noises to scare them away. Air horns, clanging sounds or even just your own voice can quickly scare birds away. Keep in mind, though, that geese will get used to the noise after a while. To prevent them from getting used to the loud sounds, alternate the noise you use each time.
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Ways To Get Rid Of Geese
If Canada geese are plaguing your property, there are a few things you can do to get rid of them. There are visual ways to control geese , but you can also impact their sense of smell, hearing, or touch to drive them away. Be prepared to adopt more than one of these measures, since geese that want to dine on a lawn badly enough can be remarkably tolerant and may need convincing on multiple levels.
Predator Decoys Keep Geese Away
Another way to frighten away geese is to use decoys in areas where they are gathering. Pay close attention to areas where they might want to nest in spring and graze or drink at other times of the year. Implanting a predator, or a look-alike of one, can be a good deterrent for geese if you use it correctly.
Predators to geese differ depending on where they are. Different regions will bring about different predators, but some of the most common predators are raccoons, skunks, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, and alligators.
Using a decoy of one or more of their predators can be effective at keeping geese away. You can buy predator decoys like this Flambeau Outdoors Lone Howler Coyote Decoy and place them in your yard. A decoy will be more effective if it is moving in some way. Some decoys can be placed on a swivel or bobble that they move slightly on their own.
You will also want to move your decoys around to different areas on your property as geese can come to expect what you are up to, rendering your decoys ineffective.
If you live in areas where geese have water predators, placing a decoy of this kind near the waters edge should do a good job of keeping geese away.
Switching it up is important for almost all of the methods you can use to repel geese. You will want to vary their placement, frequency, and type or repellant so that you keep the geese from coming to expect what you are doing.
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Why We Love Geese
Geese are very symbolic, as they mate for life and a male will die to protect his spouse. Thus, they are signs of loyalty and caring. They are also a food staple that is often served on major holidays.
Many species have been domesticated, and people of all ages enjoy throwing bread or other foods to watch them eat. As a general rule, geese are also very placid and wont attack unless a female or gosling is threatened.
How To Keep Canada Geese Out Of Your Yard
Before we go any further on how to keep geese out of your yard, lets take a look at why Canada geese are the most common breed of geese to show up in yards.
Because Canada geese are one of the most abundant species of geese in North America, they often show up in peoples properties. Statistics have shown that this goose breed is found in every contiguous U.S. state at one time of the year or another. Although Canada geese in your yard can be a beautiful sight, they can also quickly destroy your lawn.
Below, well take a look at how to keep Canada geese out of your yard using goose repellent.
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Things That Geese Hate
Geese are beautiful animals and not many people would mind a visit from a few of these birds every once in a while. However, too many geese, and a constant presence of them, can lead to property damage and a heap of problems.
Geese hate loud noises, lights in their sleeping areas, long grasses, obstructed access to waterfronts, and grape kool-aid. Yes, thats true. Geese are on your property to either eat or nest and disrupting what they need to do in both of those circumstances will help you repel them.
Read on to learn about more surprising and not so surprising things that geese hate and how to use these deterrents to keep geese off of your property.
Geese Hate Areas Without Food
Another thing geese hate? Being hungry! Geese are on your property to eat or nest, or some combination of both. If you take away their food sources or make their food harder to get, they will not likely choose your land to nest or feed.
You can take away or restrict their access to food sources on your property to keep geese from making a home on your land.
There are a few different ways you can make your property less desirable to geese. First, you can take away any food sources on your property that they might go after. This can include making sure all of your trash is sealed, keeping your grass short so they cannot eat it, and making sure that you or anyone else is not throwing food to the geese at any time.
Second, you can fence off the lake or pond on your property. If geese cannot graze on their food sources along the waterfront, they are not likely to choose your property as a place to visit, feed, or nest.
Fencing is only a practical solution if you have a smaller body of water on your property. A mesh screen like Houseables Plastic Mesh Fence would work nicely to create a waterfront barrier to keep geese from grazing. If you have a really large pond or a lake, you should try a different method as this one would be extremely pricey and impractical.
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Take Advantage Of Their Water Fondness
If you have ponds or lakes around your property, consider planting shrubs around them. Even if the plants are only two feet tall, theyll scare the geese away.
Geese enjoy being in a space where they can view every corner. So, being in the midst of shrubs would make them feel unsafe. They wouldnt know whether a predator has laid an ambush for them or not. So, the best thing for the birds would be to avoid the area.
So there you have it, the 15 clever ways to keep geese out of your yard. Some of the techniques highlighted in this post involve a little investment. But thats the least you can do to keep your lawn in top shape.
Geese can cause massive damage to a lawn. Their droppings also pose a severe health risk for your kids. So, do everything within your power to keep them at bay. You can deploy one or combine techniques listed here to accomplish that.
