Welfare considerations for farmed geese, including the severe problems of force-feeding for foie gras production and the welfare challenges of conventional goose farming.
Foie gras production is widely considered the most welfare-compromising legal agricultural practice in terms of degree of individual animal suffering caused by intentional management practice. Force-feeding overcomes the natural food intake regulation of geese and ducks to produce a pathologically enlarged fatty liver — the product depends on deliberate disease induction. The behavioral indicators of aversion to force-feeding are clear: birds move away from handlers, struggle during tube insertion, show elevated stress hormones during and after feeding, and develop progressive mobility problems from enlarged abdominal organs as production proceeds. The accumulating evidence of suffering has driven bans in an expanding list of countries, and the California ban upheld by the Supreme Court demonstrates that democratic processes can respond to this evidence. Beyond foie gras, conventional goose farming raises separate welfare concerns: live feather plucking for down products causes pain and panic; inadequate water access denies geese the swimming behavior that is fundamental to their biology; and high stocking densities in intensive systems prevent the social complexity that geese require for normal behavioral expression.