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Geese: Grazing, Guarding, Meat and Down

How to keep a few geese that live mostly on grass and give meat, fat, feathers and down with no feed store, vet or power: breeds, weeding with geese, what they can and can't do as alarm "guards", housing and water, pairs, hatching under geese or hens, goslings, feeding, predators, health, butchering and plucking, down, goose fat, the year in the valley, and how many a family needs. The goose books are thin: the main one is USDA Goose Raising (Farmers' Bulletin 767, 1954) in Animals\Poultry, with Raising Healthy Poultry, Practical Poultry Raising and Common Poultry Diseases; butchering is in Small-Livestock\Slaughter-Processing and Animals\Cattle-Horses-Pigs, feather care in Household Discoveries (Homestead-Skills\Household-Make-Do), all under Southern-Oregon\ (download list: local/library-files.txt). Where the work is the same as for chickens, this guide points to the Chickens guide. Numbers this guide works out itself say (arithmetic); check them with the Calculator.

The short version

Choosing breeds

Geese are "large, hardy, aggressive, noisy birds that need little attention when mature" and may live 30 years (Raising Healthy Poultry, p. 124). Farms kept them for meat and feathers; the eggs were a side crop (FB 767, p. 5). Standard weights are for a grown gander and goose; farm geese usually weigh less (same page).

Breed Gander / goose Eggs a year Notes
Emden (white) 26 / 20 lb 35–40 or more The usual meat goose: white pinfeathers, grows fast, matures early, sits better than the Toulouse (FB 767, pp. 5–6)
Toulouse (gray) 26 / 20 lb 25–40 or more; 35–50 in Practical Poultry Raising, p. 193 Docile, loose-feathered, grows fast; big "dewlap" strains are show birds (p. 5)
African (gray-brown, black knob) 20 / 18 lb Good layer Grows fast, matures early; dark bill and pinfeathers (pp. 7–8)
Chinese (brown or white, knob) 12 / 10 lb 40–65 or more Best layers, start earlier in the year; small enough for one family meal (p. 9)
Pilgrim 14 / 13 lb — Ganders white, geese gray, even at a day old (p. 11)
Buff 18 / 16 lb — A fair market goose (pp. 11–12)
Roman A bit under the Emden 40–50 A good market goose (p. 12)

📚 Go deeper: FB 767, pp. 4–12 — every breed, with photos; Practical Poultry Raising, p. 193 — weights table.

Geese as grazers and weeders

Geese are "the closest grazers known": grown geese and half-grown goslings "can get most of their living from a good green pasture". Don't overstock; too many geese kill the grass (FB 767, p. 13). They are choosy: they won't eat tough, dry grass and some other plants (Practical Poultry Raising, p. 193).

Weeding a crop with geese:

  1. Use them where the crop is tough and the weeds are tender. Geese eat "any tender green feed": keep them out of corn until it is "fairly large and tough" (FB 767, p. 24), and out of lettuce, cabbage, beets and other greens they are fed on (rule of thumb). Orchards, vineyards, strawberries and corn with tough stalks all suit (Practical Poultry Raising, pp. 193–194).
  2. Start young. Put in 6-week-old goslings (or older geese) in spring while the weeds are small, with shade, water and a little grain in the evening (Practical Poultry Raising, p. 194; FB 767, p. 24).
  3. Strawberries: 5–7 geese an acre, with grain at about 1 lb a day for five geese (FB 767, pp. 24–25).
  4. Move the feed, water and shade every few days. Geese kept in one place too long "destroy older plants". A low shade of posts and wire roofed with straw can be moved around the field (pp. 24–25).
  5. Take them out before the fruit. FB 767 keeps them in "until the berries are nearly ready to ripen" and puts them back after picking until late summer or fall (pp. 24–25); the Peace Corps book takes them out at blossom time (p. 194). If you can't watch them daily, use blossom time.
  6. Fence 3–4 ft high, or clip the flight feathers of one wing (FB 767, p. 25). Movable electric net rates "highly effective" against dogs, coyotes, foxes and bobcats (UC ANR 8598, p. 5).
  7. Expect to hoe too: some weeds geese won't eat (FB 767, p. 25).

Seen from above: a fenced berry patch with three feeding stations; arrows show the feed, water and shade moving from one to the next. Below, a strip shows geese in during spring, out while berries ripen and are picked, and in again after picking Move feed, water and shade every few days, and take the geese out before the berries ripen (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Geese as alarm "guards": what they can and can't do

What they can do. Geese are kept for their "ability to … act as watch dogs" and are "aggressive, noisy birds" (Raising Healthy Poultry, p. 124). They are "easily disturbed" (FB 767, p. 16), so something new in the yard sets them off. A gander stays by the nest to guard his goose while she lays (p. 15). A watch dog warns of people as well as animals: see the "Early warning with no grid" section of the Home Defense guide.

What they can't do:

Using them as an alarm (rule of thumb): put the night pen where you can hear it from the bedroom, near the house and the gate. A goose shut in a shed still honks at something prowling the pen. Count them each evening as they go in.

Housing, fences and water

Water:

Two side views. Left: a goose inside the fence reaches its neck through the wire to drink from a tub outside. Right: a gosling dips its head between bars into a deep trough Grown geese drink from a tub outside the fence; goslings get water deep enough for the bill but room for the head only (a diagram drawn for this guide).

📚 Go deeper: FB 767, pp. 13–17 — water, houses and nests, with photos; Chickens guide — "The coop: space, roosts, nests, air and litter".

Mating and pairs

Geese "mate selectively and for life" (Practical Poultry Raising, p. 193).

Eggs and hatching: under geese or hens

Laying: geese start in February, March or April and lay until late June, mostly in the morning; Chinese start earlier (FB 767, p. 16). Young geese laid about 30 eggs their first year and older geese 40–50; the older geese's eggs hatched 20% better and weighed 7¼–7½ oz against about 5½ (p. 17). Take eggs daily and a goose lays longer; to stop one sitting, shut her 4–7 days in a slat-bottomed crate near the gander (p. 17).

Hatching eggs (FB 767, p. 17): collect twice a day in cold weather, then daily; keep them cool, turn them daily if held over a couple of days, and set them within a week. Wipe dirty eggs with a damp cloth.

Under a goose: she covers 10–15 eggs, depending on her size and the season (p. 17). Give her a place to bathe and she needs no extra moisture (p. 18). Geese "make the best mothers" (p. 22).

Under a hen (so the geese keep laying) (FB 767, pp. 17–18):

  1. 4–6 eggs per hen, by her size. Turkeys and Muscovy ducks are bigger and better sitters than hens.
  2. Dust the hen for lice first (see the Chickens guide): she sits a week longer than for her own eggs.
  3. Nest on the ground or on grass turf. Sprinkle the eggs with lukewarm water every day for the last 10–14 days.
  4. Mark the eggs and turn them by hand each day: they are too big for a hen to turn, and keep them moist (Practical Poultry Raising, p. 193). Some breeders think turning unnecessary (FB 767, p. 18).
  5. Candle between day 10 and day 14 and take out clear eggs and dead embryos (FB 767, p. 18).

Timing: 28–31 days, the big breeds slowest; Emdens 29–31 (p. 18). Goslings hatch slowly: leave the hen or goose alone, unless some hatch far ahead of the rest; then take the first ones in and keep them warm until the hatch is over (p. 21). Fertility runs about 90% (p. 18).

Machines hatch only 40–60% of goose eggs; a still-air one runs about 102 °F, then 103 °F after day 10, eggs flat, turned right over twice a day and sprayed (FB 767, p. 18). Without power, the goose and the hen are your incubators.

Raising goslings

With a goose or hen (FB 767, pp. 21–22):

  1. When geese and hens hatch on the same day, give all the goslings to the geese. One hen raises about five goslings (p. 22); up to six in the Peace Corps book (p. 193).
  2. Keep the hen shut in the coop about 2 weeks; the goslings go in and out. In mild weather they need her heat only 10 days to 2 weeks. Dry, clean litter.
  3. Keep goslings out of the rain for the first month, and shut them in each morning until the grass is dry, for 2–3 weeks. No swimming until they are partly feathered. A gosling chilled in a cold rain can sometimes be saved by drying it in flannel near the fire (p. 22).
  4. Grazing from 3–4 days old. Move the coop often onto fresh grass (p. 22). On range, watch for holes they get stuck in and for soaking; give shade in hot weather and keep them apart from older geese (p. 23).
  5. Lock them in every night against predators (p. 21).
  6. Mark them with a small V cut in the web of the foot to record age and family (p. 22).

The brood coop: 2 by 3 ft holds 25 young goslings: wooden floor with straw, a sliding screen to close the front at night, and a portable wire runway moved every day or two onto fresh ground (FB 767, p. 21; photo). Goslings brooded by a hen need "good-sized, waterproof coops with board floors" (p. 22).

Side view of a small wooden coop with straw on its floor and a sliding screen in front, joined to a low wire runway on the grass A brood coop for 25 goslings: shut the screen at night and move coop and run onto fresh grass every day or two (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Without a hen or goose: goslings need heat only a short time: a brooder starts at about 90 °F, cut gradually over 10 days to 3 weeks by the weather (FB 767, p. 21). Keep them warm and dry the first few weeks (Raising Healthy Poultry, p. 124). The fire-free ways to heat a brooder are in the "Raising chicks with no heat lamp" section of the Chickens guide.

Feeding with no feed store

Grass first. Grown geese "pick up most of their living" except in winter and early in the breeding season (FB 767, p. 25). With plenty of pasture they need no more than 2 lb of extra feed per bird a week (Raising Healthy Poultry, p. 124); the Peace Corps book gives 1–2 lb a week, and only until 12 weeks old (p. 193).

Goslings (FB 767, pp. 23–24):

Breeders through the winter (FB 767, p. 25):

Feed safety:

📚 Go deeper: FB 767, pp. 23–25 — gosling, growing and breeder rations; Seed Bank guide — growing grain, kale, beets and clover.

Predators

Who takes geese: the stock-predator table in UC ANR 8598, p. 5 lists dogs, coyotes, cougars, black bears, foxes and bobcats, all of them here. Great horned owls take "chickens, ducks and other poultry" at night, and hawks carry off small birds by day; hawks and owls are protected by law (Kentucky ID-245, p. 4). For eggs and goslings, the "who did it" table in the Chickens guide fits geese too.

  1. Shut them in a secure place every night and close every door; leave no feed in the run overnight; remove dead birds at once (Kentucky ID-245, p. 6).
  2. Goslings especially: "confined at night and protected against predatory animals" (FB 767, p. 21).
  3. Hardware cloth buried at least 12 inches around the night pen stops diggers (Kentucky ID-245, p. 6).
  4. Bears: an electric fence of at least 3 wires (5–6 better), lowest 7–9 in, top 36–42 in, 8–10 in apart, energizer at least 6,000 volts and 0.5 joules, hardware cloth inside, weeds kept off (ODFW, p. 2). Without the grid that means a solar charger (Off-Grid Power guide).
  5. Cougars: "Fence and shelter livestock. Move them to sheds or barns at night." Oregon law lets a landowner kill a cougar that is damaging livestock; call ODFW (ODFW, p. 2).
  6. A guardian dog that stays with the flock is the day-and-night answer (Kentucky ID-245, p. 6).

A cut-away side view of a night pen: a shed with its door shut, a hardware-cloth fence buried 12 inches, and electric wires outside it on their own posts at the heights given A night pen: shed, buried hardware cloth, and hot wires outside to the bear-fence numbers above (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Health with no vet

"If kept under sanitary conditions, geese are free from insect pests and diseases" (FB 767, p. 13). That means dry litter, clean water, fresh ground for goslings, young birds apart from old ones (p. 23), and a closed flock: no new birds without a month apart (rule of thumb). For medicines in general see Medical READ ME FIRST; the books here give no goose doses.

Sign Likely cause What you can do
Gosling limp and cold after rain Chilled Dry it in flannel near the fire (FB 767, p. 22); keep the rest in the first month
Gasping, listless, dried out Aspergillosis from moldy straw or damp feed Throw out moldy bedding; keep feed dry (Raising Healthy Poultry, pp. 117–118)
Legs and wings go limp, then the neck; death in 12–24 h Botulism from stagnant water, rotting matter or maggots Remove the source, fresh water, bury dead birds, control flies (UF PS044, p. 11); see the Chickens guide
Young geese lame, joints hot and swollen, lying with legs back Staph arthritis Isolate; clean houses; no stagnant water; acute cases don't respond to treatment (FB 1652, p. 42)
Many sudden deaths, swollen heads, breathing trouble Bird flu No treatment; follow the bird-flu steps in the Chickens guide (UF PS044, p. 3)
Seizures, stumbling, diarrhea after a new pasture Poison plant Move them; check the list above (WSNWCB, p. 55)
Coughing, open-mouth breathing in fire season Smoke Clean water always, shade, mist down dust, put off moving them (PNW 783, p. 10)
Your hens lay thin-shelled or shell-less eggs Egg drop syndrome, carried by geese and ducks with no sign Keep geese and laying hens apart (rule of thumb) (UF PS044, p. 8)

Butchering and plucking

When: fatten 3–5 weeks first, best in cool weather (FB 767, p. 26). Young geese can go at 10–13 weeks as "green geese" of 10–12 lb; after that they are thinner and full of pinfeathers "for several weeks". Farm geese were killed at 5–6 months, 11–15 lb, in late fall (pp. 26–27), when they are "free from the small pinfeathers" and carry the most fat (p. 28). Keep the breeders lean (p. 26).

Before: no feed for about 12 hours, water left in (FB 767, p. 27). Handle them gently: goose flesh "bruises very easily" (same page). Catch a goose by the neck close to the head, then gather the wings against its body and carry it under your arm (rule of thumb).

Killing — practice first, and see the Chickens guide for the setup:

  1. Stun: a goose is too big for an easy neck pull. One hard blow to the top of the head is acceptable for big birds; a clean chop with a sharp blade is too (AVMA, p. 77). FB 767 used a sharp blow to the back of the skull "with a heavy stick" (p. 27).
  2. Bleed: hang it by the feet (a rope on a clothesline works), hold the head, and cut the neck vein on one or both sides with a sharp knife; hold on until bleeding and flapping stop (UMN EB 385, p. 2).

Plucking — "much more difficult" than chickens (FB 767, p. 27). Pick the big wing and tail feathers first and keep them apart from the body feathers and down (p. 28).

Way How Source
Dry picking (best for down) Pull downward, the way the feathers grow; pulling upward tears the skin. On the breast, pick close to the skin and roll outward, row after row CVM Slaughter, p. 84; FB 767: a nice carcass and good feathers, but slower (p. 27)
Semi-scald Water about 150 °F, dunk and swish 2–2½ min, until feathers pull easily FB 767, p. 27
Scald and wrap Hold by feet and head in water just under boiling, 2–3 min, then wrap tight in a burlap sack or blanket 5 min FB 767, p. 28
Steam On a rack or sack over boiling water: breast, then back, then sides; no more than 3 min, turning FB 767, p. 28
Hot, quick 160–180 °F for 30–60 s, a little detergent in the water UMN EB 385, p. 2
Wax (if you have it) After rough picking, dip the chilled bird 5–10 s, cool 2 min, peel; remelt and reuse the wax CVM Slaughter, p. 84; Practical Poultry Raising, p. 194

Test any scald by pulling a few feathers (FB 767, p. 28). If you want the down, dry-pick the breast and belly before any scald (rule of thumb).

Left: feathers lying back on the skin, with a green arrow pulling the way they grow and a red arrow pulling against them. Right: a wing quill, a small body feather and a fluffy down cluster, each going to its own sack Pull with the grain, and sort quills, body feathers and down into separate sacks (a diagram drawn for this guide).

After: wash the bird and chill it in cold water, or hang it at 30–36 °F; it takes several hours (FB 767, p. 28). With no ice, use the coldest spring or creek water and cook or can it the same day (rule of thumb). Gut it like a chicken (UMN EB 385; Chickens guide), saving the fat (see "Goose fat"). Yield: geese lose 25–30% of live weight drawn, with head and feet off (FB 767, p. 28). For keeping the meat see the Preserving Food guide.

Down and feathers for warmth

What down is: "the soft plumage found between the skin and the contour feathers", and geese are a good source. It is "one of the warmest natural materials available when kept clean and dry", but it soaks up rain and sweat, and wet down goes lumpy and loses its insulation (AFH 10-644, p. 177; FM 21-76, p. 177). Goose feathers were worth more than any other poultry feathers, and white more than colored (FB 767, p. 29): worth saving and trading.

Saving it:

  1. Sort as you pluck: wing and tail quills, body feathers, down, each in its own sack; goose apart from chicken and duck (FB 767, p. 28). Big quills make pens (Paper & Ink guide).
  2. Dry: hang dry-picked feathers in burlap sacks in a loft, or spread them in a dry, airy room and stir now and then (p. 28).
  3. Clean (Household Discoveries, p. 257): new feathers "quickly become foul as the grease contained in the quills decays". Beat them between wet burlap to loosen dirt. Soak 3–4 days in clear limewater, or in 1 teaspoon of cooking soda per quart of water. Pour through cheesecloth and rinse in cold water. Then boil them in water with a cupful of borax, drain and squeeze. Hang them in the cheesecloth on a line, shaking now and then, for several days. Don't use soap. Lime burns skin and eyes: gloves and goggles (rule of thumb).
  4. Store them dry in a cloth bag in a dry place until you have enough (p. 39).

Using it:

Goose fat

Where it comes from: "When the weather gets cold in the fall, geese put on considerable fat" (FB 767, p. 28). Geese raised on grass without grain "are likely to be thin"; they fatten best in cool weather on grain fed freely for 3–5 weeks (p. 26).

Fattening (FB 767, p. 27): three feeds a day, or two of mash and one of whole corn, oats or barley, at regular times; little exercise in a small yard; some hay or pulped vegetables; and water they can get only their heads into. The bulletin's mash is mostly corn meal (45%) and ground oats, barley or wheat (35%). Force-feeding gives a fatty, swollen liver and isn't worth the labor (same page).

In the kitchen: goose meat is "thoroughly infiltrated with fat" (Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, p. 250). Families "draw off much of the fat as grease" while it cooks (FB 767, p. 28). Roast on a rack so the bird sits clear of its own fat, at 325 °F; goose is done at 180–185 °F inside the thick of the breast (Wyoming, p. 2). Pour the fat off into a jar as it gathers (rule of thumb). An old goose is not a roast: joint it, brown it, boil it 20 minutes and leave it in a hay box overnight, and the meat falls off the bone (FB 771, p. 15). The carcass makes a strong broth, and the goose fat is the best baking fat a household can have: see "Meat: roasts, pot-roasts and tough cuts" and "Broth, soup and stew" in Food from Scratch.

Rendering the raw fat (pull the fat pads from inside the body when you gut it (rule of thumb)); the method is the one for lard (Minnesota, pp. 2–3):

  1. Chill the fat at once and render within about 5–7 days.
  2. Cut it small. Put a little water in a clean kettle (no copper), start on low heat, stir often, and keep it at 235–245 °F.
  3. Stop when the bubbling stops and the cracklings float, a medium chestnut brown.
  4. Strain through double cheesecloth into scalded jars, filled to the top; cool fast; store cool and dark.

Uses: cooking and baking fat, a winter source of calories (Food Security guide), and soap. For soap, boil scraps with a little salt water, let the fat set into a cake, and dry it well or it won't keep sweet (Household Discoveries, p. 179). More on rendering and rescuing rancid fat is in Food from Scratch.

The goose year in the Illinois Valley

Months Goose work
Nov–Dec Rains bring the grass back (rule of thumb). Kill fattened geese while it's cool and they're free of pinfeathers (FB 767, p. 28); render fat, dry feathers indoors. Settle the breeding pairs and trios by December (p. 14). Grain and roughage once the grass stops (p. 25).
Jan–Feb Laying mash and grain to bring geese into lay, so goslings hatch when grass is green (p. 17); Chinese lay first (p. 16). Nests out; collect eggs twice a day in the cold (p. 17).
Mar–Apr Laying. Set eggs under geese and broody hens; goslings 28–31 days later (p. 18). Grazing from 3–4 days, dry and shut in at night (p. 22).
May–Jun Laying ends late June (p. 16). Weeders into the berries and orchard while the weeds are small; out before the berries ripen (pp. 24–25). Green geese at 10–13 weeks if you need meat now (p. 26).
Jul–Sep Dry season, fire and smoke: shade, water always, cut green feed or irrigated pasture (p. 24; PNW 783, p. 10). Weeders back in the berries after picking (FB 767, p. 25). No open burning (Wildfire guide).
Oct Pick the keepers: medium-sized, vigorous, from older geese (FB 767, pp. 14, 16). Fatten the rest 3–5 weeks on grain as the weather cools (p. 26).

How many geese for a family

If this goes wrong

Problem Likely cause and fix
Geese haven't started laying by spring Too little feed in late winter; give laying mash and grain (FB 767, pp. 17, 25); first-year geese lay late and few (p. 17)
Eggs under a hen die late or don't hatch Too dry: nest on earth or turf and sprinkle daily for the last 10–14 days (p. 18); turn them by hand (Practical Poultry Raising, p. 193)
A new gander and goose won't pair Geese are slow to mate with new birds: pair them in the fall, keep old mates far apart (FB 767, p. 16)
Butchered geese are thin and pinfeathery Killed in the weeks just after 10–13 weeks, or not fattened: grain 3–5 weeks in cool weather (p. 26)
Stored feathers smell Grease in the quills is rotting: wash and dry them (Household Discoveries, p. 257)

⚠️ Old advice in the library to ignore

Book says Do this instead
The best bed feathers are "plucked from the live birds" (Household Discoveries, p. 53) Never. Goose farmers dropped it as harmful (FB 767, p. 28); take feathers at butchering
Kill by cutting inside the mouth, then push the knife through the roof of the mouth into the brain to loosen the feathers (FB 767, p. 27) Takes skill to do right. One hard blow to the head, then cut the neck veins (AVMA, p. 77; UMN, p. 2)
Force-feeding by hand or machine (FB 767, p. 27) Swollen, fatty livers for a lot of grain and work; fatten on free grain in the cool
Heat gosling coops with an electric bulb (FB 767, pp. 21–22) No power: let a goose or hen brood, and hatch when the grass is green
Rub the inside of a feather tick with beeswax and turpentine (Household Discoveries, p. 257) Leave out the turpentine; a tight, washable tick with a cover keeps feathers in (rule of thumb)
Paraffin wax dips (CVM Slaughter, p. 84; Wyoming, p. 1) Fine if you have wax; otherwise dry-pick or semi-scald

Pictures & diagrams

Look before you try it. 🖼️ = photos and drawings in the books on this drive; 📷 = photos in the offline Wikipedia.

Breeds (FB 767)

Nests, hatching and goslings

Predators, plucking and feathers

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