How to Get Rid of Canadian Geese - Intro

We have spent the past few years dealing with figuring out how to get rid of canadian geese at out lake house. As we start getting ready for another year of the battle against the geese and keeping goose poop off our lawn, I though I would share what I have learned.

Over the last few years we have tried a bunch of solutions including repellents, sprays, decoys, fences, Mylar, even kids throwing rocks. We have had some successes and a lot of failure, but we've learned a lot.

Here is the background. We have a cabin on a lake in eastern New Hampshire with about an acre of cleared grassy lawn around the house and gently sloping to the water. This turns out to be the perfect location for a flock of Canadian geese. One weekend we went up to the house and found goose poop everywhere. I mean everywhere. It is really remarkable how much poop a goose can make. I took the better part of the afternoon to clean it all up. This began our adventure with trying to keep the geese off the lawn.

It turned out to be a flock of seven Canadian geese who were making themselves at home on the lake and coming up onto the lawns around the lake to eat and poop. We started by trying to scare them off and made a game out of it for the kids who were constantly on the lookout for the geese and would chase them back into the lake whenever they came near. We even let the kids throw rocks at them since the likelihood of them actually hitting a goose was low.

Unfortunately that was a solution that only worked while we were there and since this is a weekend vacation house, the geese had all week to get back onto the lawn and leave goose poop everywhere again. Soon the goose poop cleanup became a regular part of the weekend visits. My wife was ready to start shooting them, but a quick Google search turned up the fact that it is a federal crime to kill canadian geese. She was so frustrated that she was willing to go ahead anyway, but I didn't want to deal with cleaning up dead geese if I could help it (more on that later in the story).

I'll follow up in upcoming posts about the methds we tried and what we have com up with to get rid of canadian geese.