Geese - pastured meat for homesteaders/suburbanites

[Guest guest]

We got some geese for the first time this spring - a pair of Pilgrim geese.

Pilgrims are among the nicest of geese - friendly and not too aggressive (some

others have been known to attack people). They're on the small side for

domestic geese. They are color-coded - males are white and females are lovely

shades of grey. Some sources say they are good parents and will raise two

clutches of eggs a year, others that they aren't, so maybe it depends on where

you get them from.

Here's the neat part - they can live on just grass all summer. Ours turn their

noses up (beaks up?) on the feed we put out for the hens but have grown at a

phenominal rate.

My friend who raises mixed poultry said of the chickens, guineas, ducks, and

turkeys she's raised, she liked the goose meat the best. I've never had it,

because I've never seen it for sale. It takes re-education of the consumer to

not shy away from " greasy " meats. I plan to use my Confit recipe from the book

" Charcuterie " on our goose meat - you use the fat to enhance the meat, first

brining it for flavor, then cooking it submerged in fat/grease at a low

temperature for a long time - 250 for 8 hours I believe. I've had duck confit

in a restaurant and it was the best thing I've ever eaten in my life, so I can't

wait. The fat can be saved to make another confit (like with a chicken) or it

can be used in cooking, I hear it's excellent for frying potatoes.

The poops are a problem, as is the close grazing. I'm going to keep an eye on

what happens with our lawn about this. So far the grass, even where they like

to graze the best and keep it very short, seems green and healthy. I'm wondering

if the rich poop makes up for the intensive grazing. The geese seem to go

preferentially for various weeds, like the canadian thistle I have in the

ex-garden. They DO love clover, tho. The poop doesn't seem to be burning the

grass at all, tho I tried watering the garden with their swimming water and it

killed my kale, peppers and collards.

I made a goose fence to keep them off the deck out of clothes line and bungee

cords I got at the dollar store for a total of $3. They hate to duck their

heads to go places, so the " fence " is just two strings of the clothes line

running across the deck, held on with bungee cords on one side (so if someone

trips they don't get hurt). The bungee cords also maintain the tension so it

doesn't sag. I ran another string up and down from the top to the bottom to

make it more visible - top string is about 14 " from the ground and the bottom

one is around 4 " from the ground.