34 BULLETIN 1385, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
mately 16 pounds after feeding. The gains on young geese during 
the fall months run from 3 to 4 pounds per goose. A young goose 
weighing 8 to 9 pounds would dress out at about 11 to 13 pounds 
when killed. 
At the end of the three weeks* feeding period the geese are killed 
and plucked. The killing is usually done in the afternoon of the 
day before the geese are to be sold on the market, and outside 
help, usually women and children, is employed for the picking. 
Killing consists of hanging the goose by the feet, holding the 
head in the left hand, cutting a gash in the throat with a knife, 
and catching the blood in a tin cup. After the bird is bled, it goes 
to the pickers, who sit on benches or boxes and remove the feathers 
as the goose is held in the lap. The picking is a slow operation, as 
the downy feathers are removed without the use of steam, resin, tar, 
or any other aid, except a pinning knife. When pinfeathers are 
exceptionally hard to withdraw, it is customary for the picker to 
put the mouth to the goose and remove the feathers with the teeth. 
After the feathers are removed, the geese are placed upon boards 
out of doors in the shade, the heads and beaks are washed and 
wrapped with paper, and tied in place with string. The entrails are 
not removed. The birds remain upon the cooling boards covered 
with a cloth overnight, when they are packed with straw in baskets 
and trucked or shipped to market. The blood from each goose, 
which coagulates in the cups, is wrapped in parchment paper, and 
one clot is sold with each goose. 
CHAM MING GEESE 
The cramming of geese is carried on in Czechoslovakia, Germany, 
France, and other sections of Europe, and is usually done by the 
farmers, a few geese at a time. The cramming of geese consists of 
forcing boluses of food down their throats by hand. The boluses are 
made of barley meal, oatmeal, corn meal, or buckwheat flour mixed 
with milk to about the thickness of dough and rolled between the 
palms of the hands until they are about 2 inches long and % inch 
thick at the center, tapering to rather pointed ends. The geese 
are kept in individual pens or held between the knees or under 
the arm of the feeder. The mouth is opened with the thumb of the 
left hand, the bolus dipped in milk to lubricate it, and worked down 
the throat with the thumb and fingers of the right hand on the out- 
side of the neck. In some cases the geese are trough fed and allowed 
to eat all they will, and are then superfed by cramming. Double 
the amount of gains can be made by cramming as can be made by 
straight trough feeding, so that the weights of the final goose when 
dressed reach as high as 20 to 25 pounds. The geese are usually 
fed from two to four times a day, as near as possible at equal inter- 
vals. One woman can cram about 30 geese in an hour. 
SMOKED GOOSE BREASTS 
A delicacy, especially in Germany and Denmark, is smoked goose 
breast. It consists of the best meat of the breast preserved by smok- 
