Why Don't We Eat Goose Meat Everywhere If Geese Are Simple To Raise

Goose forages off grass. Handles cold weather. Needs minimal housing. Beats chicken on iron, copper, and nearly every B vitamin. On paper, this bird should be in every supermarket chiller next to the chicken. In the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, it essentially isn't. But China slaughtered over 736 million geese in 2024 alone. So this was never about the animal. In this video, we break down exactly why goose never industrialized in the Anglosphere — starting with a correction: there is no universal human aversion to goose. China produces 95 to 98% of world goose output. Germany is one of the world's largest importers. Poland and Hungary run real export industries. What we're looking at is a specific regional pattern formed in a specific industrial window, not a verdict on the bird. We cover the honest feed conversion numbers that undercut the "geese are efficient" argument — modern broilers run around 1.6, meat geese run 3 to 4 — then get to the real bottleneck: the lowest reproductive capacity of any poultry species. 30 to 50 eggs a year, seasonal breeding, hatchability below 80%, natural mating that frequently fails mechanically, and a selection trap where breeding harder for meat traits actively makes reproduction worse. One study recorded fertility as low as 59.67%. Then we cover the historical window: how turkey displaced goose from the festive table, and how the 1940s turkey breeding boom made the competitor abundant and cheap at precisely the moment national food habits were being set around cheap poultry. Today, 75% of British home cooks roast turkey at Christmas. One percent roast goose. Easy to keep and easy to scale turned out to be two entirely different questions. 00:00 – Better nutrition than chicken — so why isn't it everywhere? 00:34 – The "too fatty, too gamey" explanation doesn't hold up 01:17 – The premise correction: China produces 95–98% of world goose meat 01:52 – World production: a 28-fold increase since 1961 02:24 – Why goose failed to industrialize in exactly the places that industrialized chicken hardest 02:55 – The honest feed conversion numbers: broiler vs goose 03:27 – Time to slaughter: 5 weeks vs 22 weeks depending on system 04:08 – The real bottleneck: lowest reproductive capacity in all poultry 04:46 – The selection trap: breeding for meat makes reproduction worse 05:18 – "Of all farm animals, geese underwent the least changes under domestication" 05:50 – How turkey displaced goose from the festive table 06:29 – The post-war breeding boom that finished the competition 07:02 – Avian flu and foie gras: two things that don't explain the pattern 07:38 – Goose lost twice: biology and timing 08:18 – Easy to keep vs easy to scale: two completely different questions 👍 Like if goose being the least domesticated farm animal is new information 💬 Comment: have you ever eaten goose — and would you buy it regularly if it was available? 🔔 Subscribe for more of your assumptions quietly taken apart #GooseMeat #FoodScience #PoultryFarming #FoodHistory #ChickenVsGoose #SustainableFood #AgricultureScience #AnimalScience #FoodIndustry #FoodFacts