Geese dressed out so small - what did I do wrong?

[Ckr]

Hello wonderful people,
I have combed through these forums collecting wonderful advice over the years, but this is my first attempt to post, so please forgive any breaches of netiquette... I'm not familiar with the rules or how this works.
I am looking for input on acceptable weight for geese. This is my first year raising geese (Toulouse & Embden) and I just processed 4 this week, and I am concerned that I am doing something terribly wrong with feeding. All four birds were ~5 months old, and all four dressed out at under 6 lbs (male Embden ~5lbs 10 plucked and mixed-sex Toulouse ~4lbs skinned). Granted I didn't save any wings, tails, organs or internal fat deposits so the weight is a mite low anyway, but still it seems very very small for the age.
Does anyone know what I might have done wrong? They were not sick in any way - I'm new to geese but not waterfowl, and have bred ducks for many years. These geese had free choice access to the same maintenance feed I offer my ducks, plus cracked corn. They were on (admittedly lousy) pasture... not alfalfa or clover, but grass if they felt like grazing. They seemed super healthy, happy and active, but just... small.
They were originally from Hoover Hatchery. Is it the way I fed them? Could they have been sulking all summer because they were separated from the keeper geese at the barn? Genetics? Parasites (I saw no evidence in the offal)? Stress? Or is 6 lbs a normal weight and I'm overreacting about nothing?
Any advice appreciated, and thank you so much!

 

[ShrekDawg]

I hope you get some answers!

 

[gooseapplefarms]

I'm currently raising French Toulouse, Buff, and African geese from Metzer's. The Toulouse and Buff are about 18 weeks now. I have weighed a couple of the Toulouse a few weeks back and they were around 10lbs live weight. I felt they should be a little farther along, but they have a large area to roam.
During the summer months, it was really hot and dry, and they spent most of their time during the day seeking shade and not eating. They prefer to eat early in the morning and right at dusk.
8 geese will eat about 3.5lbs of 18% poultry feed per night. I occassionally give them some scratch grains (mostly corn and wheat from tractor supply). At first, they wanted nothing to do with it, but once they got about 12 weeks old, they loved it. Go figure.
If you knew the live weights of your birds, that would be helpful. Keeping the wings, necks, fat, and edible organs will likely add a couple pounds to the overall weight of the carcass.


Anyway, I haven't butchered any birds yet, so I can't tell you finished weights. But I have found this nice writeup about meat geese: https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fne14-793/
They look like they're raising Emdens based on the photos. They reported live weights of just over 15lbs and carcass weights of around 10, depending on feed group (they were running feed trials) at 24 weeks.
They also note that "At the end of week 21 (September 29th, 2014), each flock was confined to its night house". So 3 weeks of fattening, I'm assuming they were mostly confined and allowed limited range access.

Anyway, for your situation, I think you got poor quality birds from the hatchery. I think some hatcheries are going to breed for fertility first, because that helps them sell more birds. Long term I plan on raising some geese and trying to breed for size as I think that's what most meat producers do to ensure they have the bigger birds, at least for geese.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Tbh Hoover’s isn’t the greatest hatchery so that’s probably part of it.

 

[Ckr]

I'm struggling to figure out how to reply, so apologies for the delay -- thank you everyone for the input! I really appreciate it! I kept back some birds as next year's breeders, so maybe I'll see if I can figure out how to get a live weight without creating lifelong enemies of them, haha. The ones I kept have started laying this week, which I wouldn't expect if they were underweight.

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

I'm struggling to figure out how to reply, so apologies for the delay -- thank you everyone for the input! I really appreciate it! I kept back some birds as next year's breeders, so maybe I'll see if I can figure out how to get a live weight without creating lifelong enemies of them, haha. The ones I kept have started laying this week, which I wouldn't expect if they were underweight.

Are geese as aggressive and grumpy as we hear? Never met anyone who raised geese but they intrigue me, I love their calls!

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

Not found anything about your Embden geese but on a few UK sites people reporting dress out weights of the Toulouse geese from 3kg to about 4.5kg (6.6lb to 10lb) but most were between 7-8lb. These weights were from mixed sex around 30-36 weeks.

 

[gooseapplefarms]

The ones I kept have started laying this week, which I wouldn't expect if they were underweight.

Well, there's 'underweight' for a goose in general, and there's 'underweight' for a meat bird. Domesticated geese increased in size over their wild counterparts over the centuries/millennias. Without selective pressure, nature will want to size them back down closer to their wild cousins.
If you're planning on keeping some for breeding, weighing them live is a must IMO. You want to keep the bigger birds and cull the smaller ones for meat. This really applies to any animal, not just geese.
But, IMO, it's important to start with good stock, birds that grow quick and on schedule. There's no sense in breeding out birds that take 1 yr to get to butchering size if you can grow them to table size in 6 months with better breeding, and you'll never get there if you start with undersized birds to begin with.
The primary problem with underweight geese is the meat to bone ratio. They bone up quickly, but good meat mass comes later. If they're are dressing out at 6lbs, the usable meat ratio is going to be much less than a bird that dress out at 10lbs.
Anyway, take what I say with a giant grain of salt, because I'm new at this.

 

[3KillerBs]

I'll see if I can figure out how to get a live weight without creating lifelong enemies of them,

I weigh cockerels with a fishing scale of the sort that has a hanging hook under it, a 5-gallon bucket, and a cloth to wrap them in to keep them from flapping and to cover their eyes.

I do it by taking them from their roost after dark and using a red headlamp.

Take bird off roost, wrap quickly, gently, but firmly, stick bird in bucket, get weight of bird plus bucket plus cloth, free bird to return to roost. Then weigh the bucket and cloth and subtract that to get the bird's weight.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

I weigh cockerels with a fishing scale of the sort that has a hanging hook under it, a 5-gallon bucket, and a cloth to wrap them in to keep them from flapping and to cover their eyes.

I do it by taking them from their roost after dark and using a red headlamp.

Take bird off roost, wrap quickly, gently, but firmly, stick bird in bucket, get weight of bird plus bucket plus cloth, free bird to return to roost. Then weigh the bucket and cloth and subtract that to get the bird's weight.

Or, just use a bathroom scale. Hold the bird, stand on the scale. Then release the bird and weigh yourself. Do the math.