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The geese at Hewish Farm is often the first thing visitors see when they come to Milton Abbas between April and Christmas.

The flock is owned by Michael Coleman who first began rearing geese by chance. He was given two geese and a gander to care for by a friend who was moving abroad.

Before long he'd bought 20 chicks from a local hatchery and was supplying geese to friends and family for Christmas.

Today he has several hundred which end up on festive dinner tables all over Dorset and beyond.

The geese spend most of their lives outdoors.

Market conditions

Goose farming was almost unheard of in the early 1970s. There was no market for the meat which meant that for the first few years Michael's goose farming enterprise was more of a hobby.

Gradually demand rose and now a goose on the Christmas table is very much in vogue.

He said, "People are looking for more traditional birds mostly for small Christmas parties. Goose has a lovely flavour and the fat makes wonderful roast potatoes and parsnips."

Goose remains a niche market and it doesn't come cheap. In recent years some supermarkets have been selling imported birds for as little as 拢15 each but Michael says in the UK, it's not possible to produce it at that price.

The geese take nine months to mature

Goose is never likely to become an every day meat and Michael is keen to keep it that way. He said, "Personally I don't want supermarkets to sell goose because the tradition of seasonal birds will go. It will become just another meat. Eating a goose should be something to look forward to."

Michaelmas goose

One growth area is a demand for goose at Michaelmas, which falls on 29 September. The ancient festival is said to date from Elizabethan times. The queen was apparently eating goose when she heard news of Sir Francis Drake's victory over the Spanish Armada. She reportedly declared that everyone should eat goose on that day from then on.

Another more likely reason for eating goose at this time was to do with听tenant farmers getting into arrears with their landlord. Giving the boss a goose was a useful bribe to keep him sweet.

The goose season

Every year Michael buys the chicks from a hatchery in the spring. In April 2008 he bought 300 for Michaelmas and 300 for Christmas. This number was down on previous years because of the rise in cost of feed and fuel. He was also worried that if people had less money in their pockets, they would be more likely to spend it on cheaper poultry such as turkey or chicken.

Some of the birds are slaughtered in September for Michaelmas but the rest are reserved for Christmas, by which time they've fattened up, having spent a whole nine months outdoors with plenty of space to roam.

After Christmas the field falls silent until the spring. Then the new chicks arrive to make up the following year's flock and the cycle starts all over again.