GOOSE RAISING. 
13 
depends upon the method of handling the geese, the section of the 
country, and the weather conditions, as goslings are usually hatched 
when the pastures are good. 
PREPARING FOR MARKET. 
Young geese, when fully feathered, are fattened in large numbers 
by buyers who make a specialty of this business. Several methods 
are used successfully in this special fattening of geese on a large 
scale. Six to eight geese are confined for three weeks in a pen and 
fed by hand five times daily on a mixture of 2 parts corn meal and 
1 part of ground wheat and sifted ground oats, mixed with enough 
low-grade flour or “red dog" to make a stiff batter when water is 
added. This mixture is put through a sausage stuffer, cut into pieces 
2 inches long and 1 inch thick, rolled in flour, and cooked like dump¬ 
lings. This is fed warm, but after cooking the pieces are dipped in 
cold water to keep them from sticking together. Another method 
used is to confine the geese to large pens in a shed for from three to 
five weeks and keep whole corn in hoppers before them all the time, 
using oat straw for bedding. Considerable of the oat straw is eaten 
b} r the geese and serves as a good source of roughage. Corn silage 
may also be used for roughage. 
A goose should be handled by its neck rather than by its legs and 
held with the back toward the attendant. In France and Germany a 
specialty is made of producing fattened goose livers, weighing from 
12 to 32 ounces, by cramming geese which are about G months old on 
boiled corn. Some of these livers are preserved and called “ pates cle 
foie gras.” 
Before marketing the young geese the average farmer can feed 
advantageously a fattening ration either on grass range or confined to 
small yards, but it is doubtful whether it would pay him to confine 
them to individual or small pens and make a specialty of fattening 
unless he has a special market or retail trade for well-fattened stock. 
Young geese are in fair demand from June to January, while the 
demand is usually best at Thanksgiving and very good at Christmas. 
Ten-weeks-old goslings of the largest breeds of pure-bred geese 
weigh as much as 10 pounds if forced for rapid growth, and may 
often be marketed at this age to advantage. It is said to cost from 
3 to G cents a pound to raise geese to 8 to 10 pounds weight. 
Geese are usually killed and picked in the same manner as other 
kinds of poultry. They are generally stuck in the mouth with a long- 
bladed knife and then stunned by a blow T on the back of the head 
with a short club. The wings are picked to the first joint, and the 
feathers are removed from the neck halfway to the head. The soft 
