Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat
Good guard dogs with real character and tasty to boot: Kate Green explains why we should choose the goose
IN 1740, the Duke of Queensbury and Lord Orford decided to enliven the annual trek of driven poultry from Norfolk to the Christmas markets in London by racing a gaggle of geese against a flock of turkeys. The geese won—by two days—and Queensbury, who had backed the turkeys, lost a lot of money.
That might have been the last time geese triumphed over turkeys in terms of Christmas fare; it’s estimated that some 10 million roast turkeys were served up last year, compared with about 200,000 geese. A turkey, of course, stretches much further than a goose (which is why Scrooge bought the Cratchit family one), but the latter is surely more romantic—evoking the good life, cottage gardens, bucolic farmyards, Thomas Hardy —and anecdotal evidence suggests that demand is increasing.
‘I’d like to think that’s the case,’ agrees Ollie White, who produces geese on his farm near Ilminster, Somerset. ‘My business has certainly grown since I started in 2010. People are becoming more experimental with cooking and the goose is now one of the last things that’s truly seasonal. They’ve never responded well to intensification, so it’s September to December only.’
Mr White is a Nuffield Farming Scholar and fourth-generation farmer who founded Farm2fork to promote 100% grass-fed meat, with animals (Aberdeen Angus, Ruby Red Devon and Hereford cattle, Dorset Poll sheep and chickens) reared ‘as Nature intended’.
‘I had quite a small acreage when I started and thought geese would be a great product,’ he explains. ‘They’re majestic and fun to have around and they enjoy a pastoral life— they’ve got more of a wandering instinct than a turkey.’
Grass-fed meat is a useful method for getting Omega 3 into the diet, he points out. ‘It creates a more even ratio of Omega 3
Which breed?
❍ Try to buy native. The Brecon Buff, a good meat bird, hardy, medium-sized and with attractive buff colouring and pink legs and beak, is one of few breeds to originate in Britain. It was developed in the 1930s by Rhys Llewellyn of Swansea, who spotted a buff-coloured goose when motoring in the Brecon Beacons
❍ Another native, the small, hardy grey-pied Shetland goose is critically endangered and needs support. It was bred by crofters for meat and for reducing liver fluke in cattle —it’s a good forager of diseasecarrying grubs and seaweed
❍ Geese are notoriously hard to sex, but another good reason for novice poultry keepers to choose native breeds such as the grey-and-white West of England (far left) and the Pilgrim (left, male), which is perhaps the most tame and docile, is that they’re auto-sexing
❍ The ubiquitous white Embden is from northern Germany and the chubby white Roman from Germany and Poland—it’s believed they descend from the Italian geese that famously warned of the sacking of Rome. The African, which can stand at more than 3ft, actually comes from south-east China and the
Chinese, by far the noisiest breed, but a prolific layer, was developed in Europe
❍ The exotic Sebastopol (right)—or Danubian—which was imported from around the Black Sea, looks like a giant feather duster, with its curly white feathers and bright-blue eyes. It can’t fly and doesn’t like mud, but it does lay and sit
For advice on keeping geese, visit www.rbst. org.uk, www. waterfowl.org.uk or www.poultry keeper.com
People will tell you that geese are horrible and that they’ve been chased by one, but hand-reared goslings will be a delight
to 6 in the meat, which is what you want— a grain-based diet is heavy in Omega 6. There’s a plethora of benefits in eating a grass-fed animal—it’s a great way of getting vitamins A and E, plus CLAS [conjugated linoleic acids], which have cancerfighting properties. And, of course, there are the environmental benefits.’
Despite the efforts of producers such as Mr White, the demise of mixed farming has resulted in far fewer geese being kept nowadays; the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) reports that nearly all native breeds are of conservation concern. Geese arguably have a PR problem—no one wants to be chased by an irate, honking gander— but they’re also pleasingly comfortable, solid creatures that feed into the nostalgic smallholding dream.
Geese won’t keep you in eggs—most breeds lay a maximum of about 40, in spring —but they’re less messy and cleverer than ducks, healthier than chickens, as good as a dog at warning of intruders and useful for keeping the orchard tidy.
RBST field officer Ruth Dalton has three golden rules for happy ownership: fix the fox- and badger-proofing or face the ugly consequences, worm the birds twice a year and manage your grass: ‘They like it short; if it gets long and lank, they won’t tackle it.’
She’s kept Brecon Buffs and says it’s important to buy native breeds and from a reputable breeder, such as through the RBST or British Waterfowl Association. ‘People will tell you that geese are horrible and that they remember being chased by one as a child, but hand-reared goslings will be a joy and a delight,’ she says. ‘Geese are very intelligent and are endearing characters in a way that other poultry aren’t.’
Writer Jason Goodwin had a pair called Greedy and Garlic. ‘They would emerge from behind a wall hissing and waving their heads at people who’d just arrived from London,’ he recalls.
‘We’d reassure our guests that they were only showing off and then they’d go and bite someone on the bum. At other times, they’d come on walks around the garden, looking you in the eye and chattering like small children.
‘What you have to love about geese is that they go their own ways and pick their own fights according to their lights.’