u/IrrelevantAfIm

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How does one keep the water safe (health wise) for 3 x 4 week old Chinese geese who use a 713 litre kiddy pool to swim and splash in for 1h per day. I’ve been using small amounts of household bleach (50-75 ml) which I pitch right after they’ve had their swim and, by the smell, the majority of it off gasses within the 16 hours when they are in their indoor enclosure. My gut says I can do this for a week (along with skimming the top and syphoning the fecal matter off the bottom daily) before an entire water change is needed - maybe even 2 weeks. So far, I’m only 3 days in with this “pond”
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So…. I filled a kiddie pool that holds this much water:

0.7137m3 - 713.7 litres - 156.99 gallons

Draining it and filling it daily would be expensive and a lot of work. It would easily triple my water use thereby doubling my water bill which is already $225-$250/month (damn - I remember when rent with water included was $500 and it doesn’t feel like so long ago - and now that could be my water bill).

I have experience managing pool chemicals; chlorine and bromine are excellent anti water born pathogen, while being very safe in small amounts. What I’ve been doing so far is adding 100mL of bleach to the pool when they finish their daily swim, and I don’t let them back in until at least 16 hours has past. If I calculated things correctly, this gives a chlorine level of a public swimming pool when being used (not in “shock”) and by the time they get back in, it should be within standards of drinking water (here I’m refering ONLY to chlorine levels, not bacteria, amoeba, viral etc levels. I grew up spending 3 months of the year at the family cottage where our well water smelled more strongly of chlorine than the pool water does when my little guys are in it. Even if the chorine does take care of the nasties at some point the nitrate level is going to be too high for their kidneys - though they’re only in it for an hour a day and they drink litres and litres of water in their indoor enclosure which should flush their kidneys pretty well.

I’ve ordered some test strips to check chlorine levels, but I’m pretty sure I’m OK - I worry more about bacteria, protozoa, and viruses which the chlorine may mitigate, but it’s no guarantee. On the other hand, I’m a stone’s throw from a park with a man made lake in the centre that’s positively OVERRUN with Canada geese - the grass banks are SLICK with goose poop, and they’re constantly pooping in that water and drinking from it and they’re as healthy and reproducing every bit as good as, if not a fair bit more so, than any other group of animals I can think of. The nitrogen and possibly other substances that build up in the park are somewhat mitigated by plant and algae growth, which my kiddy pool doesn’t have.

How often do you goose moms and dads drain/fill their swimming/splashing pond? Please include number of geese using it and the aprox volume of water or dimensions of the container.

Thanks for all your help!! Everyone in this sub has been AMAZING!!

What do you give your geese for toys. My geese are indoor most of the day, but they have a pretty expansive area gated off so aren’t lacking room and have complete command of the one set of large bay windows (west facing). I take them out for at least an hour every day - more often 2 sometimes 3 - we walk around the block a few times times and the rest of the time I doom scroll with a glass of vodka while they graze on dandelions, creeping bellflower and grass (never treated nor fertilized). Anyway, they’re still inside most of the day, and I’d like them to have some enrichment where they spend most of their time.

I’ve cut a T shirt into strips and tied them at different levels and balled up a couple other T’s and tossed them in. What they seem to enjoy the most by far is the elastic I use to hang heads of lettuce. Once the eat the lettuce, they’ll play with the elastic like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. Their next favourite is the empty litre container of coconut water I tossed in just to see what they would do with it. So far my cloth strips and balls of cloth seem to go ignored.

They seem to like picking at harder things - my ring and my watch are favourites. I’d like to get some metal an wooden beads to tie onto sisal string or cotton strips - I think that would be more interesting for them, but I don’t want anything they might swallow and impact their crop or intestines. If they’re too large they can’t beak them (or is it “bill” them”?) but small enough to swallow makes me nervous. Maybe rings - large enough they can’t swallow, but of a gage that the can comfortably nibble on. Still, I have the feeling the more thought I put in it the less they’ll care about it, and just go back to their stupid little elastic that keeps them entertained for hours.

Anyone with any ideas about what geese like to play with and any warnings about what might be harmful will be greatly appreciated.

My aprox 3-4 week old, mostly indoor geese get taken outside every day to run and sun. Too many cats for me to have them out unsupervised, even in an enclose - I just don’t trust it - and the nights are too cold here at their age.

Usually when they first get out the run around in a circle a couple times to stretch their legs. Today, for the first time, after they spent an hour or two knocking over their water dish every five minutes just to make sure I get my exercise filling it up and end up re-reading the same page in my book 2O times while they graze, drink, and poop. They suddenly started running around in circles in a way that reminds me of young dogs when they get the “zoomies”

Unfortunately, by the time I could get my phone into camera mode, they stopped, so I had them run behind me so I an show a little bit of what it was sort of like, except they were running in circles very excited.

My wife brought them home the 7th of June. By looking at various photos of Chinese goose development. I ball-parked them at about 1 week old. Tomorrow, they will have been with us 2 weeks - growing like…..well, like GEESE I guess!! I CAN’T believe how much they eat and drink. I have a large enclosure with big food and water dishes attached to the bars and raised up from the floor so they can’t spill, poop, not walk in them. Still, they dirty their water so fast by shovelling food into their mouths then, I assume, sticking their bills in the water with a mouth full of food and slurping it around. I’ve absolutely given up on trying to keep their water clear, instead I stick to changing it 4x during the day - at night they go some 8 or 9 hours without a water a when I’m sleeping without a change, but since I started taking them for a walk around the block just before bedtime, plus a couple/few hours grazing on grass and dandelions during the day (luckily I work at home most of the day - go into the office between 0 and 5 hours a day - usually about 3 - and a couple times a week they come into the office with me. We have 2 daycares, women’s shelters, indigenous meeting spaces including a sweat area and a medicine room, and addiction diversion spaces and almost EVERYONE LOVES THEM - I swear it’s very therapeutic. I’ve seen a person frustrated, sad, just all around in a terrible mood, and after a half hour of the goslings eating lettuce out of their hands, nibbling at their fingers and - the BEST when it happens - piling onto their unshod feet to sleep, their mood has turned around 180 degrees - and they leave with a big smile on their face.

Anyway - back to the original question - I am totally new at this, but looked at pic of this breed at different ages and guessed they were about 1 week when we got them which would make them 3 weeks tomorrow. Please check the pics and let me know if I’m in the ballpark.

First 2 pics were taken today, third one - with my daughter holding the young gosling - was taken the day my wife brought them home - the others I just tossed in for fun