KANGAROO Island has a fast-growing reputation for top-quality organic produce and niche gourmet markets.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
or signup to continue reading
This is certainly the case for David and Lorraine Huxtable, KI Fresh, Wisanger, who have built-up an enterprise producing a very different kind of white meat – goose.
The hydroponic lettuce and herb growers started with just three birds about five years ago, but are now running up to 400 breeders that have produced 1000 young geese for the season – many of them just in time for Christmas.
They had earlier tried farming free-range chickens.
"I wanted a natural system and I persevered with chickens for quite a few years, but in the end there wasn't enough money in it to be viable," he said.
"There was too much competition on the mainland."
David looked into geese and realised they can fetch a much higher price than chicken – about $60 a bird.
"But what attracted me most was their easy-care," he said. "They're a bit hardier and can survive quite nicely by themselves.
"I had the same idea with chickens but if they couldn't be free-range and survive with minimal care, I didn't want to do it."
With 86 hectares of land the Huxtables have plenty of grass for the geese to feed on, and the huge gaggle waddle down to a dam every day.
"They are just beautifully suited to that system because they're free-range and eat the grass, whereas ducks and chickens don't," David said.
"So after a while I brought in a few extras. "I took a horse-float to Adelaide where I bought as many as I could from wherever I could.
"I also took the boys and caught a lot of wild ones from around the island, down the dams off the farms and near the creeks, which was fun."
After hatching, goslings are fed on grain and kept under shelter for about three weeks. Then they go out to the paddock as free-range birds for about three months before being herded back into the yard to fatten-up. They are harvested at about four months.
"The expense is minimal because you're not feeding them expensive grain all the way through," David said.
"You're just topping them up, finishing them off right at the end."
The Huxtables originally sold geese to restaurants and cafes on the island that were already buying KI Fresh herbs and lettuces. Their first major customer was the Southern Ocean Lodge at Hanson Bay, which took 12 geese for the restaurant. Geese are now permanently on the menu and the lodge has nearly doubled its order from the Huxtables this year.
*Full report in Stock Journal, December 20 issue, 2012.
