Geese.
THE keeping of geese is attended with very little expence.
They will live upon commons, or any sort of pasture; and
need little care or attendance, except their having plenty of
water.
In chusing geese, the largest are reckoned the best; but there
is a sort of Spanish geese that are much better layers and breed-
ers than the English goose, especially if their eggs are hatched under
an English goose. It must be observed, that the colour of
them should be white or grey, for pied are not so profitable,
and the discoloured are still worse.
It may be easily known when geese want to lay by their car-
rying straw in their mouths; and when they will sit, by their
continuing on their nests after they have laid. The proper
time for laying is the spring, and the earlier the better, be-
cause of their having a second brood. A goose sits in general
thirty days; but if the weather is fair and warm, she will
hatch three or four days sooner. During the time of her sit-
ting you must be careful, when she rises from her nest, to give
her meat, as flag oats, and bran scalded, and let her have the
opportunity of bathing in water.
When the goslings are hatched, you must keep them in the
house ten or twelve days, and feed them with curds, barley-
meal, bran, &c. After they have got strength, let them go
abroad for three or four hours in a day, and take them in again,
till they are big enough to take care of themselves. One gan-
der is a proper portion for five geese.
To fatten green geese, you must shut them up when they are
about a month old, and they will be fat in about a month more.
Be sure to let them have always by them some fine hay in a
small rack, which will much hasten their fattening. But for
fattening older geese, it is commonly done when they are about
five months old, in or after harvest, when they have been in
the stubble fields, from which food some kill them; but those
who are desirous of having them very fat, shut them up for a
fortnight or three weeks, and feed them with oats, split beans,
barley-meal, or ground malt mixed with milk. They will
likewise feed on, and fatten well, with carrot cut small; or
if you give them rye before or about Midsummer (which is
commonly about their sickly time) it will strengthen them,
and keep them in health.
It is to be observed, that all water-fowl, while fattening,
usually fit with their bills on their rumps, from whence they