Animal Guides
Chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, quail, rabbits, goats, sheep, pigs, cattle and bees: getting started, housing, feeding, care and health.
Raising Chickens →How-To Guides
Step-by-step guides for every animal, the garden, orchard, pasture and compost: getting started, housing, feeding, daily care, breeding, health and harvest.
Garden and Land Guides
The vegetable garden, orchard, pasture and compost — with the key numbers and links to the trackers that keep your records.
Growing a Garden →Raising Geese
Geese are grazers: on good grass they need little feed, they weed some crops, and they sound the alarm at anything strange. They live 15–20 years and pair for life.
- Eggs hatch in
- 28–35 days
- Grazing
- about 20–40 geese per acre
- Lay
- in spring, often 20–50 eggs a year
- Ready for meat
- 16–24 weeks
1Getting started
- Breeds: Embden and Toulouse for meat, Chinese and African for weeding and guarding, Pilgrim for a calm family goose.
- Buy at least two — a lone goose is unhappy and loud.
- Ganders protect their geese in spring and can be bossy with children; plan where they’ll be.
2Goslings
- Brooder 90°F the first week, dropping 5°F a week; goslings grow very fast.
- Waterfowl starter (20–22%) for 3 weeks with extra niacin, then grower and grass.
- Get goslings onto short, tender grass early — by 3–4 weeks grass can be much of their diet.
3Housing and grazing
- A simple shed with bedding, about 8 sq ft each, and a 3–4 ft fence.
- Graze them on short grass; they don’t do well on tall, tough grass.
- Give a tub for bathing; geese need it less than ducks but enjoy it.
4Care
- In winter, when grass is gone, feed waterfowl or layer pellets and hay or greens.
- Geese lay in spring; breeding pairs or trios do best.
- Handle by the base of the neck and the body, never by the legs.
5Health
- Geese are rarely sick; watch for limping (feet) and keep water clean.
- Avoid moldy feed and hay — geese are sensitive to mold toxins.
6Processing
- Process young birds before 6 months, or after the fall molt finishes, so pin feathers are few.
- Wax plucking (dip in hot water with melted paraffin) is the cleanest method for geese.
- Save the fat and down.
Space guide
For each animalFencing: 3–4 ft fence
- Grass is their main feed — roughly 20–40 geese per acre
Rules of thumb — more room is always better, and breed, climate and local rules can change what you need. Sketch it out in the Barn & Garden Planner.
Put it to work
These free tools keep the records for you once you’ve made an account:
These are rules of thumb from university extension guidance. Breed, climate and your state’s rules change the details — your county extension office is the best place to ask, and you can find it on the selling rules page by ZIP code.