FEEDING GEESE 213 



Ration For Laying Duck, Per Day 



Potatoes 300 gm. , Crushed corn or oats 100 gm. 



Wheat bran 65 gm. ■* Greens (thistles, nettles, etc.) . .200 gm. 



Fish meal 30 gm. Sand 100 gm. 



Grain, twice a week, at night. 



Free range with access to ponds or streams is most conducive to good 

 results. By-feeds, in addition to the above, are usually desirable. 



The fattening of young ducks should be completed at the end of the 

 ninth to eleventh week. The usual feed is given from the second to the 

 tenth day. After this time wheat bran, buckwheat meal, rye meal or 

 barley meal, bone meal or fish meal, charcoal, coarse sand and chopped 

 greens are added. 



The fattening proper begins about the fifth week. The feed then con- 

 sists of wheat bran and barley meal or rye meal, 1 part of each; steamed 

 mashed potatoes and greens (comfrey), fish meal and coarse sand, 2 

 parts. Beginning with the eighth week the greens are displaced with 

 cracklings. 



Until the beginning of the fourth week feed should be given five times 

 a day, then four times, and finally three times. Water should be pro- 

 vided with each feed. For forced fattening, ducks are fed as above out- 

 lined until 6 weeks old, are then penned up and gradually restricted in 

 voluntary exercise by closer confinement in semi-darkness. In the course 

 of two or three weeks the process should be completed. 



They are fed two or three times a day with malt meal, barley meal or 

 bean meal (coarse), wheat bran, steamed potatoes and some cracklings 

 in the form of soft feed in addition to beets and greens. At night they 

 get soaked barley and always plenty of water, sand and some charcoal. 

 The addition of oil-cake meal, skim milk or sour milk is a common prac- 

 tice. 



3. Feeding Geese 



The first feed for goslings consists of crumbs of stale bread with 

 finely chopped nettles, thistles, lettuce leaves or the tips of blades of 

 grass, and occasionally some finely chopped boiled egg.^^ At the age of 

 2 weeks wheat bran, coarse barley meal or oatmeal with boiled potatoes 

 or mashed beets and greens are given. When the feathers begin to de- 

 velop the feed is changed to bran and potatoes, with sour milk and 

 scalded cracked oats or a mixture of oats, barley, buckwheat or com. 



Older geese are given grass, clover and various herbs gathered up in 

 meadows, fields, waysides, etc., also grains (stubble pasture) and the 

 seeds of legumes, beets and beet leaves, boiled potatoes, scalded chaffed 

 hay and scalded bran. A daily grain ration of from 100 to 150 grams 

 is sufficient for one breeding fowl during the winter. A free range is de- 

 sirable for geese as well as for other fowls. 



liYoung geese may be successfully raised on good bluegrass pasture and green dandelions, with- 

 out any other feed whatever. An ample supply of fresh water should be provided. Grain may be 

 offered when the goslings have attained a weight of 3 to S pounds. — (Personal experience of 

 translator.) 



