342 FARM ANIMALS 



sixteen pounds. The wild goose is much used in 

 breeding mongrels which are sterile crosses between 

 this wild form and the domestic breeds of geese. 

 The mongrel is greatly prized for its excellent 

 quality of meat. The business of producing these 

 mongrels is a specialty which requires considerable 

 skill and experience. 



Geese cannot be raised on a large scale like 

 chickens and ducks. This is partly due to their 

 requirement of a large run and to the fact that they 

 are not so polygamous as other farm poultry. 

 The gander may be induced to mate with three or 

 four but seldom more geese. This makes it nec- 

 essary to maintain a large number of ganders if the 

 flock is to be of unusual size and necessarily entails 

 additional expense. It is a very uncommon sight, 

 therefore, to see any large number of geese on the 

 ordinary farm. A number of geese feeders have 

 developed a considerable business in buying up 

 geese raised on the farm and fattening them for a 

 period of two or three weeks before putting them 

 on the market. In this way special geese feeding 

 farms where several thousand geese are fed for 

 market each year are established. 



Geese live to a very great age. Instances have 

 been known of their reaching one hundred years 

 and they frequently remain vigorous and lay a 

 tolerably large number of fertile eggs up to twenty- 

 five or thirty years of age. The ganders, however, 

 are somewhat unreliable after from seven to nine 

 years, but the wild Canada geese may be profitably 

 kept for twenty-five years or longer. With geese 

 it is desirable to have water for bathing purposes and 

 waste land around ponds or unused springs may 

 be profitably utilized as a goose pasture. Two or 

 three layings of eggs per season may be obtained 



