While the duck is not so widely kept as the hen, there are places where it is raised in large numbers. In the United States there are duck farms in which as many as twenty thousand birds a year are grown. There are no farms like this in Europe, though in some countries ducks are raised in great multitudes. These are not allowed to grow old, being sent to market when eight to twelve months of age. They pay better when sold at this age, for after that new feathers begin to grow and buyers do not want them.
If we turn now to the Goose, we find it a swimmer like the duck, but larger in size and with a much longer neck. It belongs to the duck family, but does not eat animal food like the duck. It gets a good living off of grass and this makes it cheap and easy to raise. In Russia, where geese are kept in large numbers, the goose girl leads her flock every morning to the fields, lets them feed during the day, and brings them home at night to the village. The goslings are given some ground grain for a few weeks, and then are left to feed themselves.
An Assault by Hungry Geese
The goose, like the duck, has largely gone out of the business of egg hatching, turkeys or large fowls being used to sit on the eggs. They are neither good hatchers nor good layers, the best breeds rarely giving more than thirty eggs a year. But they are hardy and healthy and do not die off like young chickens. They can bear cold easily, and though a shelter is made for them in winter, they always sleep in the open air in the summer.
The goose is a strong bird and can strike a hard blow with its wing. In trying to catch them the keeper must be careful, for they are able to break his arm with a blow and have done so more than once. But they are good watchers for the farm. They wake very easily, and if a stranger comes upon the farm in the night they make noise enough to arouse the whole household.
This habit has given the goose a place in history. The Romans of old kept a number of geese in the temple of Juno on the hill where stood the Capitol. The goose was sacred to that goddess and it was the custom to keep a flock in her temples. One night a party of Gauls, who had laid siege to the city of Rome, found a narrow path up the steep hill and were almost at the top when the sacred geese heard them and made so loud a cackling that the garrison woke up and rushed out. Here the Gauls who had reached the top were flung down the steep hill, stones were thrown down on those that followed, and the Capitol was saved.
One of the best known breeds of geese is that of the Giant goose of Toulouse, usually about sixteen pounds but sometimes twenty-four pounds in weight. The Embden goose is still larger. The Giant goose of Italy is the only good layer, and yields about sixty eggs a year. In Germany and some other countries geese are driven for days along the roads, in flocks of several hundred. They are not easily tired and are good travellers, so that this is the cheapest way to get them to market.
As for the uses to which the goose is put, these are simply for food and for their feathers and quills, which are plucked several times a year. The fine, soft feathers are of much value for pillows and beds, and before the steel pen was invented goose quills were used all over Europe and America to make into pens.