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Burak and Ebru Sahinkaya left city life in Samsun and built a farm with about 600 geese in a rural neighborhood, where they have lived since 2022.
Burak, who ran a pet shop in Samsun for many years, and his wife moved with their two children to the rural Hacili neighborhood in the Kavak district four years ago.
The couple first received 50 geese as a grant in 2023 under the Samsun Metropolitan Municipality’s Goose Production Expansion Project. Due to demand, they gradually increased the number of geese to about 600.
“By multiplying these geese to 200, 300, 400, we became a farm with about 600 breeding geese,” he said.
The couple also earns by selling the goslings (young geese) of the geese they raise for meat.
Burak said that he packed his bags and moved to their rural neighborhood with his wife and children in 2022. Noting that his wife and children adapted to the area quickly, Sahinkaya said: “My childhood dream was to raise geese. I started with a few geese.”
Sahinkaya said they have also decided to establish a cooperative for goose farming in the Kavak district.
“When we were kids, houses in villages had at least 20-30 or even 50 geese,” he said. “Then we looked and saw that nobody in the village had geese.”
He said that after they started producing geese, the people around them saw there was a good living in the business and an additional income.
“Right now, six or seven households in our village alone have started goose production,” he said. “We have brought 100-150 people into the goose business in the Kavak district. We are doing everything we can to revive the sector.”
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Pointing out that the Samsun Metropolitan Municipality is also supporting them in increasing goose production, Sahinkaya said the cooperative has a project for a breeding facility, a hatchery and a slaughterhouse.
“God willing, we will start operating in 2027,” he said. “For now, since we do not have a slaughterhouse, we sell goslings.”
He said the goal is to turn geese into meat products. “In other words, we want to get into supermarkets in cut pieces,” he said. “Currently in Türkiye, geese are sold whole. That strains people’s purchasing power. We want to cut them up and sell them in pieces.”
Ebru Sahinkaya said they tried raising geese, ducks and chickens in their first years and, after research, decided to raise geese because it was both profitable and more enjoyable.
Drawing attention to the fact that the pandemic period triggered their move to the countryside, Sahinkaya said they were in the village during that period, and it was very enjoyable for them. “For a year, we did not close our home or workplace in Samsun,” she said.
“When I realized that everything was better here, especially more productive for my children, we left our life there completely and settled here,” she said. “We are quite happy here, both commercially and spiritually.”
Stressing that they have not had much difficulty raising geese, Sahinkaya said there are busy times from season to season, sometimes during the egg-laying and chick-hatching periods. “Other than that, there is no difficulty,” she said.
She recommended that people who will settle in a village be brave. “This job takes courage,” she said. “Also, both husband and wife need to love village life. However enjoyable it is, there are difficulties from time to time, especially in winter.”
“If they are aware of these, there is no chance they will not earn money commercially from the work they do in the village,” she added.
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