Anyone's Cotton Patch Geese laying?

[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".

 

[Blackhorsehill]

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?

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?

 

[morgan mc]

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.

 

[Serina81]

Got my first egg today wohoo!

@Morgan, when I incubate, I incubate at 55% and don't wet the eggs. I can't incubate at higher humidity or I don't get babies hatching. I have no idea why when everyone else (including Tom Walker) incubates at 65%.

@Aurorasprings, Kristy I talked to Tom Walker and he doesn't like the idea of an association. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but you might want to email him about it since he is the guru of cotton patches. Maybe he will have some suggestions. If he's not on board, it might be hard to get some of the other big names on board

I also think it's important that, while recognizing that the CPG is a landrace breed, we don't forget that there is a detailed standard and that we are trying to move away from a landrace to a firm formal breed. Although I still haven't been able to get Tom to sit down and write out what the standard is... I think I'll just call him and have him talk it out and then I'll write it down. I'll try to do that this week so that we can have a REAL standard lol.

 

[Blackhorsehill]

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.

 

[hossfeathers]

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.

 

[Serina81]

I think Tom is worried about the politics mostly. He put it "the last thing the cotton patch goose needs is an association." So maybe it should be more like a breeder registry to help keep track of everyone?

What do the other goose breeds do?

 

[hossfeathers]

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.

)

 

[Serina81]

I think after spending half his life trying to save the cotton patch goose, Dr. Walker meant the last thing the cotton patch needs to survive and not disappear is an association.

Please remember that I didn't say that we shouldn't have an association, I'm just bringing up what Tom said to me. To play the devil's advocate, there are definitely cons to an association. For example, some associations are so clique-ish that it's practically impossible to get into the breed (PM me if you want an example, I don't want to get in trouble on the forum for "trash talk"). Imagine how bad that is for a breed. First off you can't even get the animal, or at least a good quality one, and second it turns people off from wanting to be involved with that breed at all.

Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't have an association, but you have to recognize and discuss the problems inherent in starting one so that you can at least attempt to prevent them. And we certainly need to respect the people who saved the breed in the first place without having an association when they say that an association will be bad for the breed. All I'm saying is that someone, and I'm willing to do this if Kristy (aurorasprings) doesn't want to, needs to speak with Dr. Walker in more depth about this. And it would be helpful to contact the other big names in the breed. These people have been breeding cotton patch geese longer than some of us have been alive.

As for the breeder directory, that really is all that Leslie Edmunson's San Clemente Island Goat Association is and it seems to be working just fine with them. All she has is a website with a list of breeders (and no criteria to get on it except that you can trace your animal's lineage), and some info about the goats.

 

[hossfeathers]

Quote: 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.


Quote: 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.)