FEEDING AND FATTENING GEESE 



105 



They may have the frame and muscle, but will not have 

 the fat to bring them up to full weight. And, as a rule, 

 they will be from ten to fifteen per cent smaller than they 

 would have been with one or two light feeds of mash 

 a day. 



Large goslings weigh about three to three and a 

 half ounces when hatched. At one month they should 



GOSLINGS GRAZING 



weigh from four to five pounds, and from that time until 

 ten weeks old should make a gain of over one pound a 

 week a little more at first, gradually increasing until at 

 the last of the period they are putting on as much as a 

 pound and a half a week. At this rate goslings weigh 

 from 10 to 12 or 13 pounds (and occasionally even more) 

 at ten weeks of age. A gosling to be sold as a green 

 goose is usually at its best for that purpose at ten to 

 eleven weeks. Sometimes they will continue to grow 

 for a little longer, but as they are usually coming to this 

 age in June and July, they are more apt to go back a 

 little than to gain if the weather becomes hot. As the 

 earliest goslings bring the best prices, and the tendency 

 is for the price to run a little lower as the season passes, 

 it is nearly always the best policy for the grower of green 

 geese to sell them as they are at ten or eleven weeks. 

 If held longer they may not only begin to go back in 

 weight, but will certainly begin to molt their first plum- 

 age and grow their adult coat, and while they continue 

 to increase some in size while this is going on, the rate 

 of growth is not as rapid as before, they are not as fat 

 as it is desirable to have them to command the best 

 pi ices, and being full of pinfeathers they are hard to p : ck, 

 and do not make as nice an appearance when dressed. 



Fattening Goslings 



Goslings that are grown to be marketed as green 

 geese at ten to twelve weeks of age can be made as fat 

 as necessary by simply giving them all they want of aa 

 ordinary mash for growing chickens, for a week or ten 

 days before they are to be sold. Few goslings are fin- 

 ished in this way, because so few of those who grow 

 goslings produce them in any considerable numbers, or 

 are willing to give them any extra care and feeding. 

 Goose growing generally is a matter of getting what is 

 possible from a few dozen, or at the most a few hundred 

 goslings, without expense for feed. The greater part of 

 the goslings grown each year are either sold to men in 

 districts, where geese are grown on many farms, who 

 make a business of fattening for the market, or go into 

 the markets of the 'large cities with the general receipts 



of poultry, and there are picked up in quantities by com- 

 mercial fatteners, or in small lots by immigrants from 

 Central Europe who fatten them for their own tables. 

 The commercial fattening of geese is done by substanti- 

 ally the same methods as market ducks are handled in 

 the last few weeks before killing. The principal differ- 

 ences are in the "conditioning" of the geese before the 

 beginning of heavy feeding, and the more exclusive use 

 of corn in fattening. The geese brought to a goose- 

 fattening farm to be finished for market, being collected 

 from hundreds of different places, sometimes transported 

 long distances, and mostly accustomed to a diet contain- 

 ing comparatively little grain in any form, cannot be im- 

 mediately put on a heavy fattening diet. To do so would 

 be to spoil the digestion and make it impossible to finish 

 them for market. Especially in fattening the earliest 

 goslings in hot weather it is necessary carefully to avoid 

 anything that would puf them "off their feed." 



A goose farm that fattens through the season, from 

 as early as goslings can be secured for this purpose untU 

 the beginning of winter, is usually located where ponds 

 or streams will afford the geese ample opportunity for ex- 

 ercise in the water. When the geese are first brought to 

 the farm they are put in yards that give them access to 

 the water, and fed rather sparingly twice a day a mash of 

 corn meal and bran and middlings, in which the corn 

 meal is about half of the mixture, and the other half is 

 equal parts of the other two ingredients. There is con- 

 siderable diversity in practice in this respect however, 

 and some fatteners use much larger proportions of corn 

 meal from the start. 



Green feed is given liberally. As the first geese do 

 not come to the farm until July, and as the land on which 

 geese are fattened soon becomes quite fertile, it is an 

 easy matter to have rank crops of oats, barley, or fodder 

 corn growing at this season, which will supply all- the 

 green feed needed for some time. With plenty of green 

 feed, two light feeds of grain a day, and freedom of the 

 water, the geese are soon in excellent condition and ready 

 for a heavy fattening ration. They are now taken from 

 the yards affording them access to water for swimming, 



GOSLINGS DRINKING 



leaving these for the newcomers, and are placed in pens 

 a few rods wide, and either nearly square or about twice 

 as long as they are wide. The arrangement and size of 

 the pens is determined mostly by the lay of the land and 

 convenience in feeding. In these pens are long troughs 

 for water and feed. 



