MANAGEMENT OF GEESE
Geese will bear confinement well if given proper attention, but they
require such large quantities of succulent green food that it does not
pay to grow them where they cannot secure most of this by foraging. Very
few people who keep geese in inclosures too small to furnish them with
good pasture can conveniently supply them with all the green food that
they need. Hence no one engages in growing geese in close quarters for
profit. Many, however, grow a few geese under such conditions because of
the interest a small flock affords. Goose growing cannot be developed on
intensive lines as duck growing has been. One obstacle to this is the
difficulty of supplying green food under such conditions. Another is
that the average egg production is small. The description of the
management of geese on farms will show more fully why this branch of
poultry culture is likely always to be restricted to general farms.
SMALL FARM FLOCKS
=Size of flock.= On the ordinary farm, where only a few dozen geese are
grown each year, a flock of one male and from two to four females gives
a sufficient number of breeding birds. It is more difficult to get a
start with geese than with fowls or ducks, because a young gander will
often mate with only one goose, and an old gander separated from mates
to which he has become attached may be very slow about establishing new
family relations. An experienced goose grower does not expect to get
very good results the first season that a flock of breeding birds are
together. On the other hand, a flock once harmoniously mated does not
have to be renewed every year or two. As long as the old birds are
vigorous the entire product of young may be sold each season without
reducing the producing capacity of the flock. The average gander is past
his prime after he is six or seven years old, but geese are often good
breeders until ten or twelve years old. Occasionally a goose lives to a
great age. There are reliable accounts of geese breeding well when over
twenty years old. Some stories of geese living to more than eighty years
of age have been widely circulated, but little credence is to be given
such tales; people who originate them and suppose that they are true do
not know how difficult it would be to make sure of the identity of a
goose through so long a period.
=Houses and yards.= Geese, like ducks, prefer to live in the open air,
and do not often voluntarily take shelter from any element but heat. It
is customary to provide a small shelter which they may use if they wish.
In most cases it is not necessary for a farmer to make a yard especially
for geese. The permanent fences or walls between the divisions of the
farm will usually keep geese in the pasture allotted to them. The best
place for geese is a marshy meadow in which some parts of the surface
are elevated enough to be quite dry at all seasons. These places afford
more comfortable resting places when the birds tire of the wet land.
They also furnish different kinds of grass from those growing on very
wet land. On many farms there are tracts of land much more suitable for
geese than for any other live stock. Cattle and hogs sometimes cut up
such land very badly, destroying the vegetation on it and making it
unsightly. Such a piece of land is sometimes a part of a pasture used
for cattle. In that case it may be a good plan to fence the cattle from
the soft ground with a wire or rail fence, which keeps them out of the
part reserved for the geese, yet allows the geese the range of the whole
pasture. A small number of geese in a large pasture will not hurt the
pasture for cattle or horses. Too many geese in a pasture spoil the
grass for themselves as well as for other stock. Even when cattle have
access to all parts of a pasture in which there are geese, a small space
should be inclosed for a feeding pen, where food for the geese will be
out of the reach of other stock. This is especially necessary during the
breeding season, when they usually require extra food.
=Feeding.= A flock of geese in a good pasture need no other food except
at the breeding season or when they are being fattened. If there is any
doubt about the pasturage being sufficient, a small trough or box
containing grain of any kind that it is convenient to give them should
be put where they can eat what they want. When there is snow on the
ground, they should have a little grain and all the cabbage, beets,
turnips, or other vegetables they want.
=Laying season and habits.= Geese usually begin to lay in February or
March. As many nests should be provided as there are geese, for while
two or more geese sometimes lay peaceably in the same nest, it is more
likely that each goose will want one to herself. A barrel placed on its
side in a secluded place makes a good nest. Geese are sometimes very
notional about the location of the nest and, neglecting one provided for
them, may choose a spot right out in the open or in some place where the
nest is not well protected. When they do this, it is a good plan to
place over the nest, without disturbing it, a large box with a hole cut
in one end for passage. Geese, like ducks, lay very early in the
morning. When they begin laying while the weather is cold, the person
who has charge of them must be up early and get the eggs before they are
chilled. A goose usually lays from twelve to eighteen or twenty eggs and
then goes broody. The common practice is to set the first lot of eggs
under hens, and keep the goose away from her nest until she shows no
inclination to sit. She may then be allowed access to the nest and
before long will begin laying again. As a rule the second lot of eggs
will be fewer in number than the first. When the goose goes broody the
second time, it is as well to set her, for if stopped again she may not
resume laying. Occasionally a goose lays for a whole season without
going broody.
=Hatching and rearing goslings.= In hatching goose eggs under hens the
hens are managed in just the same way as if they had hen eggs. Each hen
is given four or five eggs, according to the size of the eggs and the
size of the hen. A goose must be set in the nest where she has been
laying. If she is inclined to be very cross if approached while sitting,
she should be left to herself as much as possible, care being taken that
nothing can molest her. With the help of the gander a goose can defend
her nest against almost anything likely to attack it, but some eggs
would probably be broken in the fray.
The period of incubation is from thirty to thirty-five days. The
goslings sometimes chip the eggs two days before completing the process.
They should be left in the nest until they begin to run about. Then, if
they are with a goose mother, they may safely be left to the care of the
old ones, and may not even need to be fed. The early goslings with hen
mothers should be placed on sod ground where the grass is fine and soft,
in coops such as are used for little chickens, with a small pen in front
of each coop to keep them from wandering away. This pen may be made of
boards 8 or 10 inches wide, set on edge and kept in place by small
sticks driven into the ground. It is best to give them only grass to eat
the first day. After that two or three light feeds of mash may be given
daily, but they should always have all the fresh, succulent green food
that they can eat. The coops and pens should be moved as often as is
necessary to secure this end. The goslings should also be constantly
supplied with drinking water. They will appreciate a bath occasionally.
Goslings grow very rapidly. In from ten to fourteen days they are so
large that they no longer need the hen mother and she may be taken away.
At this stage several broods may be combined and the flock allowed the
run of any place where it can graze unmolested. A shelter should be
provided for protection from the sun, and a roomy coop with a dry floor
to keep them in at night. If allowed to do so, they would stay out and
graze at intervals during the night, but the owner will sleep more
comfortably if he is sure that nothing can disturb them. Although very
big babies, they are quite soft and helpless at this stage. When six
weeks old a gosling is nearly half-grown. Young goslings that were
started with hen mothers may then be put into the pasture with the old
geese. When ten or twelve weeks old they will be almost as large as the
adult birds.
[Illustration: Fig. 149. Goslings three or four days old]
[Illustration: Fig. 150. Goslings three weeks old]
[Illustration: Fig. 151. Goslings nine weeks old]
In growing geese on the farm the most important thing is to provide good
pasture. Grass is not only the most economical food, but it is the best
food. Geese will grow and fatten on grass without grain, but will not
fatten as quickly or be as firm-fleshed. To fatten for market they
should be confined for from ten to twenty days before they are to be
killed, and fed all that they will eat of some very fattening food. Corn
soaked in water until it is soft is an easily prepared food and a very
good one.
LARGE FLOCKS OF GEESE ON FARMS
The most important goose-growing district in the United States is that
part of Rhode Island where the colony system of egg farming is used.
This district is well adapted to goose growing. The winters are not
severe, and the birds can have grass almost the year round. The breeding
geese are often kept in pastures occupied by hens and cattle, but there
are also many small ponds and marshy places used exclusively for geese.
The absence of foxes makes it possible to keep them in fields a long way
from the farmhouses, and for this reason many spots are used for geese
which in other districts would be too exposed. The large flocks of hens
in this district give an abundance of sitters to hatch the early
goslings. As the person who looks after the sitting hens and the young
chickens on one of these farms has to give the greater part of his time
to that work for several months in the spring, he can often use the
remaining time to best advantage by hatching and rearing a few hundred
goslings. So a large proportion of the farms which specialize in eggs
also specialize in geese.
The numbers grown on a farm vary from 100 to 500, the average being
between 200 and 300. To produce this average number, flocks of 15 or 20
geese and 4 or 5 ganders are kept. A flock of this kind does not mate
miscellaneously, as a similar flock of ducks would. It is composed of as
many families as there are ganders, and if the pasture is large, these
families will remain separate a great deal of the time.
The method of handling the geese on these farms differs from the
ordinary farm method in that the work is done more systematically and
more attention is given to the goslings while growing. They are grazed
each year on new grassland. Most of them are sold unfatted, as soon as
they are of full size, to men who make a business of fattening and
dressing them.
GOOSE-FATTENING FARMS
[Illustration: Fig. 152. Goslings grazing on a Rhode Island farm]
Market duck growing is conducted on so large a scale that each grower
can employ expert pickers and sell his product directly to wholesale
dealers in poultry. So the duck grower fattens his own ducks before
killing them. It is natural for him to do this, too, because his method
of fattening is a modification of the feeding process which he has used
from the start. As he nears the end of his process of feeding, he simply
increases the proportion of fat-forming material in the food and feeds
all that the ducks will eat. The fattening of geese that have been grown
on grass to make them of the quality that will bring the highest price
requires a change to a heavy grain diet. The farmers who grow these
geese could fatten them better than any one else and make more profit on
them, but few of these farmers are willing to give them the special
attention that this requires. So large a part of the geese sold alive
are thin that the men who bought them to dress for market long ago saw
an opportunity to make a greater profit by fattening them before they
were killed. Some of those who engaged in fattening geese were very
successful and made large profits. As they extended operations in this
line they required a great deal of land. Sometimes as many as 15,000
geese are fattened on one farm in a season. The fatteners buy in the
early part of the summer from the farmers who sell the green geese as
soon as they are grown. As these make the finest geese for the table,
and as the best demand for geese comes at the holiday season in the
winter, a large part of them are put in storage after being killed.
After the green geese are disposed of, the fatteners buy live geese
shipped in from distant points, and have them ready to kill about the
time when the demand for goose is good.
[Illustration: Fig. 153. Scene on a goose-fattening farm in England]
While they are very profitable when everything goes well, fattening
geese is a business attended by heavy risks. In buying from many
different sources a fattener may get some geese having a contagious
disease, and the infection may spread through his whole flock before he
discovers it, for some diseases have no pronounced symptoms in their
early stages. Keeping such large numbers of geese on the same land year
after year also brings trouble through the pollution of the soil.
GROWING THOROUGHBRED GEESE FOR EXHIBITION
The proportion of thoroughbred geese among those grown for market is
very small. Most of the geese on farms are grades produced by crossing
thoroughbred or high-grade males on the old unimproved stock. This gives
a type of goose which is much better than the old common goose but not
nearly as large as the heavy Emden and Toulouse Geese. The intermediate
size is, however, large enough to meet the general market demand. The
production of thoroughbred geese is carried on to supply stock of medium
quality for the farmers who want to maintain a good grade of stock, and
to supply exhibition birds of the best quality for the relatively small
numbers of fanciers and breeders of standard-bred stock. The usual
method of growing exhibition geese is to keep only one breed on a farm,
and to manage them as ordinary geese are managed, except that, to secure
the best possible development, the breeder is more careful than the
average farmer is to provide abundant pasture and all the grain that the
birds can use to advantage. Occasionally several breeds of geese are
kept on a farm, but most breeders consider one enough.
GROWING A FEW GEESE ON A TOWN LOT
Old geese are so noisy that they are undesirable inhabitants for
populous places. In such a place a poultry keeper who wants to grow a
few geese often finds it satisfactory to buy eggs for hatching and
either dispose of the goslings as green geese when three months old or
eat one as he wants it until all are gone. The only difference in
handling goslings in close quarters and on farms is in the method of
providing the green food. On the farms the birds graze; on the town lot
they must be fed very abundantly with succulent food. They will eat
almost any vegetable leaf that is young and not too tough, and they
should have such food almost constantly before them. Most people who try
to grow geese in a small space injure them by feeding too much grain. If
they have had no experience in this line, they suppose, quite naturally,
that birds so much alike as the goose and the duck, both in outward
appearance and in the texture and flavor of the flesh, require the same
diet. When we compare the duck, which lives so largely on grain and
meat, with the goose, which makes greater growth in the same period on
grass alone, we can begin to appreciate what large quantities of bulky
green food the goose needs to accomplish so remarkable a result.
While the growing of geese in bare yards is not recommended as a paying
venture, every one interested in poultry should grow a few occasionally
for observation.
GROWING WILD GEESE IN CAPTIVITY
Wild geese mate in pairs. If they are to be bred successfully in
captivity, they must have a place away from other animals, where they
will not be disturbed. They will be more contented if located near a
small pool or stream. A pair of wild geese is usually kept during the
breeding season in a small, isolated inclosure containing a permanent
water supply. Here the female will make her nest, lay her eggs, and
hatch her brood. The male at this period is very savage and will
vigorously resent any interference with his mate. Most wild geese in
captivity lay but a few eggs, and the broods hatched are small. There
are seldom more than five or six goslings in a brood. After the young
are hatched, the parents may be allowed to leave the inclosure with
them.