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.