THE HOMESTEAD GOOSE

Image Gallery

Whether they owned a lot in town or fanned a half section, many of our ancestors felt that geese were a necessary part of the Complete Homestead. And that was good thinking: the big, versatile waterfowl eat little, practically raise themselves, make ideal "watchdogs", and supply their owners with meat, eggs, down, fat, and liver. Small wonder then that, at least in times past, geese have been valued highly-even considered indispensable-by the self sufficient family living on the land.

But that was before the days of "agribusiness" and its accelerating tendency to concentrate on animals and birds that can be raised intensively in confined spaces by modern "scientific" means. Needless to say, the independent and pugnacious goose-which thrives best when allowed to roam freely and select exactly the random diet of bugs, bark, and grass that it happens to want at the moment-hasn't taken kindly to this "progressive" trend.

Then, too, the delicious meat of this boisterous bird has somewhere along the line-acquired a reputation for being "peasant" fare in our nation of conspicuous beefeaters.

And so we now find the goose rapidly disappearing from the farms and tables of North America. And more's the pity for that unhappy fact at least in our estimation. We've been able to become less and less dependent on the city and its ill-gotten gains and more and more self-sufficient over the past few years precisely because-at least in part-of the geese we've raised. We recommend them highly.

GEESE ARE GREAT

For one thing, geese are big (full-grown adults can-depending on breed and sex-weigh in at 8 to 26 or more pounds apiece). That's a lot of meat, and several meals, for the average family.

For another, these birds put on that weight very inexpensively. They eat a lot less per pound of gain than either chickens or ducks, and the mainstay of their diet during the summer, if you give them the run of your yard, can be nothing more costly than common, ordinary grass. In the winter, they'll do well on lower-protein (therefore, less expensive) grains such as oats with just a little corn thrown in for heat.

And geese have yet another very important point in their favor: their health and longevity. Like other waterfowl, they're susceptible to virtually no contagious diseases and barring accidents-a pair of breeders can outlive their owner (a twenty-year-old goose is no rarity).

HOW TO START A FLOCK OF YOUR OWN

If you establish your colony of geese by buying a pair or trio of market-variety mature (at least two years old) adults, you can probably increase the flock by just letting nature take its course. (Exhibition geese, as explained in the sidebar with this article, may require some special attention.)