Winter-Start Goose Raising Techniques: Make More Money Around Spring Festival

Winter-Start geese are goslings hatched and raised during the period from the Start of Winter to the Winter Solstice. After the goslings reach 40 days of age, they enter the intermediate stage, during which they are fattened for 20-30 days and reach an average body weight of 5-7 kg. They are ready for market right around Spring Festival, when demand is strong and prices are good.

1. Gosling selection. Choose improved meat-type geese that grow fast, picking goslings with large heads, thick legs, glossy down, strong struggling ability, good foraging ability, strong disease resistance and relatively fast growth. Only in this way can you achieve the best farming returns and ensure a body weight of 6.5-7 kg or more at 70-80 days of age.

2. Careful management. After the Start of Winter, temperatures gradually drop, so doing a good job of cold protection and insulation is the key to successful rearing. Self-warming brooding can be used, that is, when the goslings rest, put them in baskets lined with soft rice straw and cover them with old cotton wadding or grass mats to keep them warm; within 3 weeks of age, keep the temperature inside the basket no lower than 20°C. When they eat and drink, remove the cover and put the goslings in the brooding room so they can move freely and exercise their cold resistance. As the goslings grow older, gradually lower the brooding temperature; the ideal state is goslings that are lively, evenly spread out, resting quietly and have a good appetite. If the goslings tuck their heads and necks in, huddle together and make sharp calls, the temperature is too low and needs to be raised quickly. During warming, windows must be opened for ventilation to keep the air fresh.

3. Short-term fattening. Goslings can be fattened after reaching 40 days of age. There are two commonly used fattening methods: 1. Pen fattening. Use bamboo strips or sorghum stalks to form small pens, each pengoose raisingholding 5-6 birds. The size of the pen should not exceed twice the size of the goose, with a height of 60 cm. Feed troughs and waterers are placed outside the pen so the geese can stretch their heads out to eat and drink. Feed 3 times during the day and once at night, mainly with corn, bran, soybean cake, paddy rice and so on. 2. Forced fattening. Mix feed such as corn, sweet potato, wheat bran, broken rice, fine bran and soybean cake with water, make it into sticks about 5 cm long and about 1-1.5 cm thick, dry them in the shade, then manually insert them into the goose's esophagus and force it to swallow. At first, feed 3 times a day, 3-4 sticks each time; later increase to 5 times a day, 5-6 sticks each time. After about 30 days of fattening, the goose can gain more than 1 times its weight. The daily ration of fattening geese should be mainly high-protein and high-energy; in the early fattening period, concentrated feed such as corn, soybean cake and fish meal accounts for 60%, while bran, radish and other green feed accounts for 40%; in the later period, concentrated feed accounts for 80% and green feed accounts for 20%, with free access to drinking water.

When you feel the goose's body and the subcutaneous fat is firm and elastic, the breast muscle is full, the fat around the tail vertebrae is plump, and the roots of the wing feathers are transparent, it indicates that the goose has been fattened well and is ready for market.