Reproductive characteristics and methods to improve reproductive performance in goose production: A systematic review

In the past two decades, the high demand of and significance of poultry meat have promoted the development of the goose industry. Despite the continuous expansion of the goose breeding scale and the generation of large economic benefits by the goose industry, low reproductive efficiency remains a barrier to limit vigorous development of the goose industry. Poor reproductive efficiency can be attributed to breeding seasonality, strong broody behavior, and poor semen quality. Based on the reproductive endocrine regulation mechanism of geese, an overview of past studies that have developed various methods to achieve a significant improvement in goose reproductive performance including physical facilities for artificial illumination control and dietary nutrition manipulation to improve breeder reproductivity, and artificial incubation equipment and technology for better hatchability. The most recent advances utilize immunoneutralization to regulate critical hormones involved in goose reproduction. This review provides new information for industry and academic studies of goose breeding.