Background

Guillermo and Junny Gonzalez left their homeland of El Salvador in 1985 to pursue a new venture: The establishment of a foie gras farm in the United States. They traveled first to France where they apprenticed in foie gras production with the respected Dubois family in the Perigord Region.

In November of that year, Guillermo traveled to Northern California to explore the wine country in hopes of finding a farm and processing plant to launch their business. His first steps were to meet with the law enforcement division of the California Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento, and with poultry specialists in the Avian Science Department of the University of California at Davis . His intention was to do everything by the book and with the utmost attention to detail and proper procedure.

A Day in the Life

Sonoma Foie Gras is committed to the highest standards of animal welfare, and utilizes humane and modern techniques in the raising and feeding of ducks. Ducks are never individually caged and are allowed to free range for most of their lives.

The ducklings are received when they are one day old. They spend the first 5 - 8 weeks in a barn, under heat lamps and on bedding of wood shavings while they develop their feathers. They walk about and have access to all natural feed and water. Once they have enough feathering, they are brought out to the walnut orchards, where they continue to roam free range for about two months. Here again, they have access to all natural feed (no hormones or antibiotics), water and shade.

During the final two weeks, they are housed in temperature-controlled barns, where they are kept in groups of about 12 ducks per pen measuring about 33 square feet. They are tube fed twice per day by the same feeder, using a pre-measured quantity of feed. 

Natural Capacity

The first evidence of foie gras is found in ancient Egyptian history, some 45 centuries ago. In the wild, ducks and geese gorge themselves prior to migration in order to temporarily store fat in their liver and skin, which they use for energy during their migration. The managed feeding takes advantage of this ability by placing food in the esophagus through a tube, using the duck's physiological built-in capacity to transform the excess feed into fat and store it in the liver. 

Each feeding takes only a few seconds and the pressure applied has been studied to be non-injurious to the duck. A tube is inserted down the duck's esophagus which deposits food as it is drawn out of the esophagus. Since ducks do not have a gag reflex, throat or stomach, the food is not ?crammed down the throat? or ?pumped into the stomach.? Instead, the esophagus serves as a holding area for the feed while it is digested. The duck's esophagus, as with any waterfowl such as the blue heron, which is able to swallow large, live fish, is expandable and pliable. For these reasons, the feeding tube is not harmful to the animal, as proven by scientific studies.

Since the process of producing foie gras is physiological rather than pathological, the fattened liver, or foie gras, created by managed feeding, would return to its normal size if the process were abandoned.