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.
