Geese Grazing and Dairy Farm Grassland Management

Overwintering geese grazing on the northern side of the Solway Firth has been detrimental to maintaining grass cover for dairy livestock into the spring period. A compensation scheme currently operates to cover the losses of the farmer's grassland by the geese grazing. However, it would be preferable if the geese were dissuaded from utilising these grassland fields.

The hypothesis was that field with more dense hedgerows and treelines would reduce the number of geese to the field, as the geese are more wary of the dense vegetation as cover for predators.

Grass cover measurements were done monthly through the winter period of 2023/24 and compared to geese number counts done over the same time in a set of fields on farms surrounding the Wetlands Centre. Enclosure cages were employed to assess the dry matter losses from the grassland in these fields. The fields were paired and had either good, moderate or poor hedges.

The work confirmed the hypothesis as fewer geese numbers were recorded in the good hedge fields and there was greater dry matter available at the end of the season compared with the poor hedgerow fields.