How to do well the breeding and matching of geese

The selection of breeding methods should be carried out in the following two periods: the first selection should be carried out at the age of 70-80 days. The number of geese that meet the requirements of the breed, such as rapid growth and development, weight, good health, feather color and other appearance characteristics, should be 10% and 20% more than the planned number of breeds. The second selection was carried out at the age of 180-200 days. At this time, the breeding geese have fully developed, and the secondary sexual characteristics of geese are obvious. The breeding male goose requires a large head and neck, strong physique, symmetrical development of all parts of the body, wings close to the body, obvious sarcoma in the forehead, big eyes, deep chest and wide back, length, thick shin, wide distance between legs, steady walking, loud sound, etc., at the same time, the male geese with penile hypoplasia or hypoplasia will be eliminated. The breeding goose requires a beautiful head, slender neck, large body, neat, compact and shiny feathers, shallow forequarters, wide and deep hindquarters, round abdomen, strong shins and wide distance between legs.

Timely mating age can give full play to the best benefit of breeding geese. Early mating of male geese not only affects their own growth and development, but also poor semen quality; early mating of female geese will lead to low qualified rate of breeding eggs and poor quality of goslings. Generally, it takes about 7 months for small and medium-sized geese from hatching to sexual maturity, and 8-10 months for large geese, and the sexual maturity of male geese is later than that of females, earlier in Chinese geese and later in European geese.

Whether the mating ratio of male and female geese is appropriate or not directly affects the fertilization rate of breeding eggs. The mating ratio of geese varies with many factors, such as breed, age, mating method, mating season, gregarious time, feeding management and so on. In general, the male-female ratio of small geese is 1 ∶ 6 to 1 ∶ 7, that of medium geese is 1 ∶ 4 to 1 ∶ 5, and that of large geese is 1 ∶ 3 to 1 ∶ 4. When young male geese and old male geese participate in mating, the number of female geese should be appropriately reduced, while the number of female geese can be appropriately increased when strong male geese of appropriate age participate in mating. Before the arrival of the breeding season, it is appropriate to group early, and the number of male geese in the early stage of herding can be appropriately increased. Under good feeding and management conditions, especially when grazing, the number of male geese can be reduced appropriately.

Breeding methods the breeding methods of geese can be divided into two types: natural breeding and artificial auxiliary breeding. Natural breeding refers to putting a certain number of male geese in the goose flock and allowing them to mate freely. When the male goose is larger and the female goose is smaller, and there are some difficulties in natural mating, artificial auxiliary breeding is needed. This mating method is often needed when using large goose breeds as male parents for cross improvement. When implementing artificial assisted breeding, the operator should first put the male and female geese together to let them get familiar with each other and carry out mating training. after they establish the conditioned reflex of mating, press the female goose to the ground, make its belly touch the ground, head toward the operator, tail outward, the male goose will take the initiative to climb.

Generally speaking, the egg production of female geese increased year by year from the beginning of laying, and began to decrease in the fourth year, that is to say, breeder geese can be used for 3-4 years. There are also some small precocious geese, such as Taihu geese in China and Kuban geese in the former Soviet Union, whose egg production is the highest in the first year. These geese can only be used for one year, and they will be eliminated at the end of egg laying and when a few geese begin to change their feathers.

In order to ensure the high and stable yield of geese, it is necessary to maintain a proper age structure when selecting breeding geese. The general age structure of geese is that 1-year-old female geese account for 30%, 2-year-old female geese account for 35%, 3-year-old female geese account for 25%, and 4-year-old female geese account for 10%.