Time to cull some geese for the freezer. I need to cut numbers from 24 down to about 9 – 3 ganders each with two females.  First priority for culling were the couple of noisy chinese geese and the youngster they’d raised this year (not actually there’s – I put a fertile egg under the goose!).  Also an infertile older grey-back goos, and a young chinese gander raised in an incubator and on the grass at home.  I managed all of these except the chinese goose: generally I walked them until the one I wanted was isolated from the others and then walked them up to and along a sheep-netting fence where they are much easier to catch without resorting to chasing and all the stress that results in.  However I never got the chinese goose: by the time I got to her she and all the others were wise to my game, and they were keeping well clear of me!

As it happens, I only just had time to process the four I’d could get hold of.  Lacking any plucking aids, I stuck to simply extracting the best meat – breast and thighs. And very good too! For the first time I saved curled feather and down for making pillows: though we’ll need to collect up a lot more before we’ve enough to make something worthwhile!

I really do not like killing the geese: they are gentle intelligent (if a bit silly) creatures, with personalities. They are also difficult to kill cleanly. However they do make good sense on my croft, as they are grazing animals which I can manage on my own without dogs or expensive equipment or for that matter endless paperwork and regulations. In fact geese are very easy to keep and scarcely cost a thing.