2013 Sebastopol Breeding/Gosling Thread

[RURU]

As Cottage Rose said anyone can have a website. Not all of us that have web sites are "Big Breeders"... I am not a big breeder just a hobby breeder. I want quality not quantity. I want healthy geese and goslings. If I feel I have more than I can handle I will pick out birds to sell so I keep the numbers down. Sometimes we keep back goslings and grow them out until fall to pick what we want to keep and then sell the others.

It is always good to sit back and take a good look at your geese and make sure they are Happy and Healthy and make sure to take the best care of the birds as possible. Do not over crowd them, makes sure they have clean water all the time to drink as well as bathe in. Feed proper amounts of good feed and plenty of grazing the grass. Make sure to worm them Spring and Fall. If you follow these practices all should stay well. Also to make sure you research any breeders that you go to in purchasing birds. It is easy just look them up on google...

 

[Goose and Fig]

Well said, ladies!

And also- not every bird is going to be great. You can have carefully selected parent stock and still have offspring with issues.
Geese are a long term investment. Breeding them is not something to be taken lightly.

 

[RURU]

No breeding can not be taken lightly! It is a well thought out plan to find really nice geese and pet out the ones not up to breeder, better quality, just does not seem to be a strong bird. You do not want to breed birds together that do not produce healthy happy goslings. Make sure the person purchasing the geese taken out because not the quality for breeding, you state that to the person purchasing them from you this is PET quality and I do not recommend they be bred.

If you are losing that many goslings one needs to sit back and ask their self a question, What am I not doing right if I am losing all of these goslings. Gosling need to be in brooders for a certain amount of time having the down coat. They can not be left outside in the rain or too chilly. They need clean fresh water and feed. Most of all TLC.

 

[PsycoPeep]

Chickens. I was talking about chickens. I just bought my first goslings and haven't lost any of them. I can certainly undertand and respect that everyone handles and raises them differently, so it could be a fault of the buyer. True. I had lost power for over a day and lost 11 chicks due to no heat lamp and temps got down to 50's in the house. Not the sellers fault, but not mine, either. But when they die 1-2 days after getting them, I hardly think it's the buyer's fault. There was clearly something going on w/the chick before I got them home. I was loosing 1 chick a day and 2 chicks on one day after I got them home. They were on 20% chick starter, medicated, and under a heat bulb, and I dumped, rinsed, and gave fresh clean water every 1-2 hours. They were not in a drafty room, no odors or sprays used, no preditors. So starting the day after I brought them home, having 1 die every day? That's why I firmly believe it wasn't me or my fault. That's what I mean.

The goslings are all doing great! I do have someone who's begging me for the mixed breed, but I'm not driving 3 1/2 hrs ONE WAY to deliver her to a swap when I have nothing to sell but that one. So I'll prob. just put her up in an online classified ad and see if I get any bites.

 

[Goose and Fig]

I have an accidental cross this year. I think I am going to keep her though- you never know when you will end up with a lonely gander that you just don't want to use for a season. I hate having an odd guy/girl out.

 

[RURU]

Ok, PsycoPeep I now know what you were talking about. Before it was not that clear. Are you letting the chicks get wet by any chance? I have never had chickens so have no idea about them. But was told the can not get wet, turkeys either that they die from getting wet with a chill...
I understand the power going out and losing chicks to the cold. That is my fear when I have eggs in the incubators of the power going out. But my husband took care of that and purchased a gas generator that we can hook the incubators up to if the power should go out.

I know chicks can die easy. Is the person NPIP tested? I wonder if there is any inbreeding? Not knowing much about chickens I can be of no help to you. I only do Sebastopol geese....

I try to go to breeders that are NPIP tested or ones that I have known for awhile before I purchase my birds.

Geese are much stronger than baby chicks. When you go to the stores that carry chicks you can always spot a dead one in the group. That is when they told me about them getting chilled if they get wet. Plus need the heat.
If I were you I would keep my butt from going to either one of those breeder again for chicks. There are always someone out there that will be breeding healthy chicks....

 

[SilkieSensation]

I have my 1st young pair of sebbies (about 2 months old) & they are just starting to feather in. Still waiting for the beautiful curls. My gander is coming in all white but the hen seems to have a few grey feathers in the mix. She was much darker to begin with so not sure if that means she will be colored or if they lose the grey when they molt out later. I wouldn't mind her being colored (I was actually looking for colors) but was just wondering if she could still end up being pure white too.

I'm still on the hunt for additions to the flock as well. If anyone in the eastern ohio, northern WV panhandle or western PA has any available please PM me with prices & what colors/ages.

 

[RURU]

PsycoPeep when you have big breeders or hatchers I wonder if they are doing inbreeding because they lose track of who is who and then inbreeding starts to happen and this is how the chick are not as hardy and vibrant ??? They start losing the healthy vibrant ones to genetically inbred who just are not hardy? I have no idea like I said never raised chickens. But by rule of thumb inbreeding is never a good idea unless you know what you are doing and keep records of which breeding's you have done.

I do know how to inbreed due to my past at breeding show quality Brittany's and had already been breeding show quality cats for years. If you do it right you can get some awesome animals. But if you do it wrong there are so many defects that do NOT show on the outside but are hidden inside and stress brings it out and they get sick and die.

 

[PsycoPeep]

Sometimes the chicks would get wet if they ran/walked thru their water dish, yes. I changed dishes and gave them something deeper so they couldn't just up and walk thru something more flat & shallow, but they still did it. Not as much, but.... The breeder I got the sebby from is NPIP and WI ttest flock certified. But doesn't that make it null & void if she's selling birds for other people under her name? The other breeder I'm not sure if she is or not. I had asked her once if her birds were marek's vaccinated and she said no, she had no way of doing it. It isn't as easy as it sounds and you have to do it in mass.

As to weather or not I get rid of her - IDK. It isnt' a crime to have mix breeds, and I don't mean to make her out to sound horrible b/c she had a mixed breed (or her friend, whatever), but what I meant is you need to let ppl know what they're getting and what's going on and perhaps the purpose of mixing them? I've been told sometimes they're used to widen the gene pool and to keep the darker gray color in there and there's nothing wrong w/using them. One of the ppl I've been talking to in another sebby group said that if I take the babies and breed them back to a seb. and then those babies back to a seb, I will be just fine. In 3 or 4 yrs w/selective breedings I'll be back to purebreds again. But the way I look at it is if I'm brand new, this is my 1st goose experience in my life, I'm not a well known breeder, don't have a good reputation built yet, I'm prob. going to have a hard time selling off the babies I don't want b/c I'll prob. be looked at as a backyard breeder who's just mixing anything trying to make a buck. Not so! LOL! And the other point of why should I go backwards for up to 4 yrs when I can just buy proper purebreds and breed them from the start and move forward w/the breed. Leave the complicated stuff to experienced breeders who know what they're doing and know what to look for. My husband doesn't want me to get rid of her and neither do the kids, but the kids are more willing to let her go b/c I raise show quality rabbits w/them and they know and understand certain faults or flaws and they're out of the breeding program. My husband just gives me the smart alek answer of "Don't breed her, then" Uh, hello? If she's in the pen w/all the rest of the geese, she's GONNA get bred and you can't stop it! Plus you'd have no way of knowing which egg came from her vs oneof the other ones. Not to mention even if you DID (which you can't unless you saw it come out) once they're in the incubator and start hatchign and in the brooder and all mixing and running together, you won't be able to tell the babies apart. So in otherwords, I'd have to tell everyone that the sebs are mixed. There's no way to prove they are or aren't b/c there's no way to tell which came from which. That's the point I'm trying to get across to him.

So...that's my delema. She may be pretty, she may have a darling personality, but unless I keep her and a gander completely seperated from the rest, I just don't see it working out. IDK how to sex them. I've tried, but guess I just need to keep on looking on occassion in order to familiarize myself w/it more for the future. So IDK for sure if ti's a female. Like I said, they told me that they're pretty sure she's a girl just due tothe way she acts. Huh? OK! LOL! The other lady I got my pure sebs from thinks I picked out a gray saddleback, a buff and a white. Well, the white's kinda gray so that might mean it's a female. But IDK on the other 2. So IDK if I'd be able to pr her off or not. I don't want to pr her off w/a buff, that's for sure. And if the white's a girl, that rules that out. Well, if the gray saddleback's a boy, that's all fine and dandy, but then what am I going to breed my other ones to if that's the only boy I have? That's why I'd rather just have 1 pen and about 1/2 doz of them in dif colors run together and whatever you get, you get.

 

[SilkieSensation]

With my new pair of 2 month olds, how long before I see curly & can tell quality. I'd like to get more from the guy I got these from at the next swap if he's there but want to make sure these are good before I do.