Hronk! Hronk! Goose scratch! Hronk! Hronk!

This is a follow-up to the Hronk! Hronk! earlier post.

I did my duty and went to Linnton Feed and Seed to buy cracked corn, as I had read about on line, to feed the geese, instead of bread.

But when I got there, I saw there were two bins, cracked corn labeled "Hen Scratch" and another one with mostly white "pebbles" labeled "Poultry and Duck food." Both were 60 cents a pound. Huh?

So I went and asked the person at the counter. She told me that cracked corn is like candy -- a snack for the birds, and not very nutritious. The "pebbles" in the other bin are dried soybean milk, which has a lot of protein and nutrients and is better for the birds. Since they were both the same price, she offered to give me a mix of the two -- nutrition and a snack (not hard to convince a most-health-food conscious chocolaholic) and I bought eight pounds' worth. The other option was to buy a 50-pound bag of one or the other.

Now I've got my super-duper goose food but when they came hronking and I threw it in the water -- it mostly sank, and by the immediate splashes, I figured the carp were getting it. At one point a carp must have come up right below one of the geese who screeched and flapped his wings and hurried away.

Okay, now what? The geese would get a little bit of it, but most of it sank. Then I discovered that there were some depressions in my float logs below, and that I could put a couple of handfulls in two different places, so two birds could eat at one time. The one that is all white (I'm guessing that one's the male) is more aggressive than the other and unless they had separate spots, the bird with gray on its wings wouldn't get anything.

I thought I would have to make sure to rinse the wood off every day so as not to attract rats, but not only do the geese eat every morsel, I realize wakes from passing boats wash it off continually, too.

I've now had to buy my second eight pounds, and also bought a small plastic container so I could keep the feed on the deck. I don't think this batch is going to last that long. Before, this pair used to come by maybe once or twice a day. Now they come by hronking VERY LOUDLY four or five times a day. I am going to have to go back on line to find out how many ounces a goose ought to eat a day and feed them accordingly.

(By the way, I got the above photo only by waiting very patiently until the goose got comfortable with me and my camera leaning way over the deck.)