If you want a default value to come out of the database without having to code anything into your classes, I suggest you update every row where it is null and set it to 0 in the database. If data is getting inserted from another application and that application is allowing a null value, put a 'DEFAULT 0' on your database column.
Grails also offers an "afterLoad" event which is run when a domain object gets loaded from the database. See the documentation here: http://grails.org/doc/2.3.7/guide/GORM.html.