A surprise from the boys!

fowltemptress

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Jan 20, 2008
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Nope
First, a little history:
Last year I ordered two female Pilgrim geese from Ideal. I just wanted a couple of geese for pets and some eggs I could blow out and work with, and I ordered Pilgrims so I could be absolutely certain the hatchery wouldn't make a sexing mistake. The geese arrived and I fell in love at first sight. As they grew, though, I noticed they were feathering out white. I sent a photo to Ideal and asked them about it, and they said their Pilgrims could not be color sexed as goslings (Guh!?!), and that it looked like I had received males instead of females. I was offered either a full refund or a reshipment of my order. I wasn't overly miffed, because I primarily wanted pets, and my boys filled that position perfectly.
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Fast Forward:
Today I went out to work on the garden and panicked when only one goose approached me. I searched all over, and finally found my missing "boy" happily sitting on a nest of seven eggs! Now I have no clue what breed (breeds?) of goose I have, or if only one or both of them are girls or . . . well, it was quite a shock. And despite all the weird order mix ups, I did basically end up with what I wanted: two sweet geese for pets, and some nice eggs for crafts.
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Well I'll bet that was a surprise. A good surprise though. I thought you could sex pilgrims at any age....hmmmm post some pics.
 
I sent pictures of my geese to Ideal, explaining the situation and asking them to help me identify what they had sent me. They sent me back an email telling me that my white feathered, blue eyed geese were, in fact, female Pilgrims. Now, I'm not hopeful enough to expect okay quality birds from a hatchery, but as far as I'm concerned, you can call a white, blue eyed female goose many things, but there's no way from here to heaven that it can ever be considered a Pilgrim. I wonder how many people ordered Pilgrims from them last year and got rid of the white birds, thinking they were male?

I still love my little girls, though.
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They look just like a Embden
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That's what I suspect.​
 
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you know, you are right. I was thinking if I got a breed that was color sexed, I could just dispatch the males if I had extras...your experience has taught me to wait....
 
They look like my Emdens. One goose (female) even has the gray feathers (though a smaller area than yours). It COULD be a male Pilrim though ... White with gray under the wings. It's not SUPPOSED to show with the wings down, but my male Pilgrim does.

Must have been quite a surprise to see "him" on eggs!

But I agree ... NO WAY those are female Pilgrims. Ideal should know better.
 
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