Anyone's Cotton Patch Geese laying? - Page 3

Since it IS a landrace breed, I'm working with Leslie Edmundson from the Spanish Goat Association and San Clemente Island Goat Association. She's has these breeds set up to allow for variations among different "lines" as long as they can be traced back to a pure herd/flock and fit some general guidelines. We will have to decide what the "minimum" standards are and what the ideal standards are. I know it will focus more on the origin of the flock than what it "looks like".  

That sounds wonderful.  Seems like a better way to do it, than to get completely locked down on physical appearances.  So provenance will be important!  Thanks for your work on this.  Don't know what I can do, but let me know what you need.

Anyone have information on the birds that came from the Hattiesburg, MS zoo?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by AuroraSprings 

Since it IS a landrace breed, I'm working with Leslie Edmundson from the Spanish Goat Association and San Clemente Island Goat Association. She's has these breeds set up to allow for variations among different "lines" as long as they can be traced back to a pure herd/flock and fit some general guidelines. We will have to decide what the "minimum" standards are and what the ideal standards are. I know it will focus more on the origin of the flock than what it "looks like".  

Took out egg #5 today.  Have 3 from one goose, 2 from the other.  After consulting with others in this cold climate, this is what I was advised to do.  It still gets into the teens at night, so to do otherwise would mean frozen eggs.  When the goose finally settles onto her nest, she will get the 5 freshest eggs, the rest go into the incubator.

Anyone else's laying yet? 
 

I don't have much luck setting goose eggs in the incabator but what I have found that works good and lets me set twice as many eggs is put ten or so under the goose and  the same in the incabator then switch them every 4 or 5 days. I have good hatch rates useing chicken hens just be sure to wet them every couple of days. I will try to get some pictures of my cotten patch on this weekend.

Serina,  congrats on the egg.  I imagine it is a relief.

Do you know why Dr. Walker isn't crazy about an association?  There are certainly pros and cons, the big con being the fact that then politics and egos can enter the picture.  Yeck.  But.... especially with Dr. Walker pretty much retired, there needs to be some way to keep the breed going, I guess you could say. 

If the goal is to eventually get acceptance in the APA, I believe there has to be a club, with a certain number of committed breeders working something like 5 years to reach that goal.  Personally, I'm not a fan of narrowly defined phenotypes, because that can also be the end of some of the productive qualities that poultry "should" have.  You see the same thing in any breed of any animal that becomes narrowly defined for the show ring.  Maybe that is what he is afraid of. 

What Aurora Springs was suggesting, re working within different defined lines with provenance would make sense, at least to me.  But still, without an association and people committed to record keeping, it could fall apart down the line, and the breed could disappear again.  Just my 2 cents, or penny, or maybe nothing. 

Would be wonderful to get Dr. Walker's opinion on it. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackhorsehill 

 

Do you know why Dr. Walker isn't crazy about an association?  There are certainly pros and cons, the big con being the fact that then politics and egos can enter the picture.  Yeck.  But.... especially with Dr. Walker pretty much retired, there needs to be some way to keep the breed going, I guess you could say. 

 

If the goal is to eventually get acceptance in the APA, I believe there has to be a club, with a certain number of committed breeders working something like 5 years to reach that goal.  Personally, I'm not a fan of narrowly defined phenotypes, because that can also be the end of some of the productive qualities that poultry "should" have.  You see the same thing in any breed of any animal that becomes narrowly defined for the show ring.  Maybe that is what he is afraid of. 

 

What Aurora Springs was suggesting, re working within different defined lines with provenance would make sense, at least to me.  But still, without an association and people committed to record keeping, it could fall apart down the line, and the breed could disappear again. 

I agree that it would be a shame to shift the breed into a show-focused breed, instead of  a job-focused breed.  And I strongly agree that we need some sort of "association" or group to maintain continuity and keep contact between the breed lines and get new breeders - and make sure the new breeders know how to cull to keep from spreading poor examples of the breed all over.

I'm not as crazy about the APA, (nothing against the APA, just the show focus) but I don't know what other options we have.

Leslie Edmonson is a good person to work with on this - she is very sensible about landrace breeds and keeping associations on the low drama end of the scale.

Actually, I think the last thing the cotton patch geese need is to disappear, this time for good. 

(And before that be turned into a pink-footed copy of the Pilgrim.)  But I'm not clear on how he expects the breed to be maintained in this non-cotton-dependant era *without* some sort of organization.

The cotton patch isn't going to survive on its own.  It needs people.  People = politics.  Sure, when Dr Walker was the only one raising them, no politics.  But unless he really expects that one person is going to be able to effectively safeguard the breed from here into the year 2100 & beyond, there will be politics.

I would think a breeder registry is going to focus on the people, not the birds.  To me that really sounds like a recipe for (scrambled!) politics - and badly bred birds.

(And no, no eggs yet. )

OMG, yes, I know, from other livestock species, and don't tell me about your experience, because I'd really rather not have my suspicions confirmed.  And yes, that's awful, and no, don't want that.

And I have a tremendous amount of respect for Tom Walker and what he did to save the breed.  My point is that if there had been a viable association, his extraordinary efforts would have been unneeded, I think.

See, I didn't know this - I thought it was only Walker who had them, and a few people who got their geese from him.  Not only did I not know that there were other BIG names, I didn't know there were other names AT ALL.  (I am glad I know now!)

(I'm also glad to hear of Morgan's line of birds, which also was news to me.)

When I think about what an association is supposed to do (I mean, aside from drama & catfights and sabatoging each other at shows and all the rest) I think of recording and preserving this kind of history about the breed.  I would love to hear the stories of these older breeders.

Back to a question that I had earlier & didn't ask - if we go for an APA standard, do we have to do it as a 'prescriptive' standard, or can we do it as a 'descriptive' standard?  And can we set up CPG to be graded by card and not placement?  (I'm asking questions from the ALBC's breeding strategies book, which I do not have a complete grasp of...so I am very open to correction and explaination.)