106 Present address: 1,2,4 Division of Livestock Production and Management (endolf123@gmail.com). 3 Division of Animal Breeding and Genetics, 5 Faculty of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry Geese have interesting biological characteristics, such as a high juvenile growth rate, a good adaptation to free range and grazing, high dietary quality of meat (Romanov 1999) and disease resistance (NRC 1991) but yet have remained neglected in many countries including India to the extent that not even basic statistics are available. Perusal of literature reveals meagre scientific studies being carried out on geese across the world and the situation is more dismal as far as research on domestic geese in India is concerned. To generate a baseline data on available domestic geese germplasm the present study was planned. The study was conducted in Srinagar, Ganderbal and Bandipora districts of the Kashmir valley. The geese rearing areas in these districts were identified and during the survey, body weight of 746 adult geese was recorded and 112 geese rearers were interviewed to gather information regarding the production parameters. Growth in terms of body weight of different age groups was recorded by weighing available birds at the time of survey. Age at sexual maturity was calculated on the basis of the information collected from the farmers about the age of their birds at the time of laying first egg. Egg production characteristics in terms of pattern of laying, clutch size, number of laying cycles in a year, and total number of eggs laid in a year was recorded as reported by the farmers. Hatchability and incubation period (days) was ascertained on the basis of the inputs provided by the farmers during the study. The data was tabulated, classified and analyzed as per Snedecor and Cochran (1980). Growth: Body weight of different age groups (Table 1) in the present study showed an increasing trend with increasing age. Several authors have observed similar trends in the growth of goslings (Murawska and Bochno 2008, and Kumar et al. 2009). Average gosling weight in the studied geese was lower than Tamil Nadu geese (Kumar et al. 2009) and Turkish geese (Kumar et al. 2009) but was higher than Magpie Goose as reported by Whitehead and Tschirne (1990). Age at sexual maturity (ASM): Age at sexual maturity or age at first egg was 13.733±0.534 months in Kashmir geese. Juodka et al. (2012) and Hasani (2005) indicated an earlier ASM for Vishtines geese and geese in Azarbaidjan area respectively. ASM in Kashmir geese was more than in the local ducks of Kashmir where it has been reported to be 11.5 months (Bihaqi 2012). Egg production: Average clutch size in domestic geese in the survey was reported to be 9.445±0.298 eggs, which was higher than Tamil Nadu geese (Kumar et al. 2009) but lower than the Cotton Pygmy-goose (Upadhyaya and Saikia 2012). Total number of eggs laid in an year averaged to 12.38±0.575 in the observed geese. Although the total number of eggs laid per year by geese is lower compared to most other poultry species (Buckland and Guy 2002), Kashmir geese in particular appeared to lay even lesser number of eggs per laying season than most of the other goose breeds such as Chinese, Amorstream, Balien Eu, Nungan Mieu and Rung Eu geese as mentioned by Buckland and Guy (2002). Banerjee (2013) has also reported more number of eggs laid by the geese in West Bengal. However, Zhedong goose lays lesser number of eggs per laying season, while as Yili, Turkish, Romny, Podkarpacka and Celler Gans geese lay almost similar number of eggs per laying season (Buckland and Guy 2002). Egg laying showed an alternate pattern in the present survey, which may be due to the time required for egg formation, estimated to vary from 42 to 44 h in white Roman geese (Xiang and Guang 1996). Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 84 (5): 578–579, May 2014/Short communication Growth and production traits of domestic geese in local conditions of Kashmir, India HENNA HAMADANI 1, AZMAT ALAM KHAN 2 , T A S GANAI 3 , M T BANDAY 4 and A HAMADANI 5 Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology- Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir 190 006 India Received: 27 December 2013; Accepted: 24 January 2014 Key words: Body weight, Clutch, Incubation period, Hatchability, Maturity Table 1. Growth in domestic geese of Kashmir Age Body weight (g) 0–4 weeks 89.285±9.472 3 months 2875±0.243 6 months 3189±0.186 9 months 3342±0.124 12 months 3625±0.092 24 months 3742±0.148 36 months or more 3980±0.488