Buff Dewlap Toulouse Thread

[psue]

Oh, dang it! Sorry PSue. Nice mothers day gift.

Thanks I happen to have 6 goose eggs in the hatcher. 3 sebbies and 3 embdens... I refuse to sell them.

 

[pete55]

PSue - what a lovely flock of Buffs and you must be so pleased with them. They look like big healthy birds and a great Buff foundation flock.

You asked for an honest critique and I can do that but please do not take any offence as none intended.

Overall you need to select for more dewlap and keel development though this is often not so pronounced with the females. To help with this I would consider investing in a high quality Grey (or Grey split) Gander that has good size, good dewlap, good keel, depth of body etc Then breed him to one of your Buff females and select their best Grey (split for Buff) sons. Some will be good some not so but you need to run them on for a while to make sure. Some lines can be very slow to develop and you often find even more dewlap and keel development in the 2nd year. However I like to see the beginnings of a dewlap and keel by 9 months old.

Retain the best Split and breed him to another of your Buffs which will give you the chance to breed your own Buff ganders and again select them for health and best features.

However Napolean does have strong head and good dewlap and if he was paired to a very good grey female then you'll improve the type again and have the chance to breed some very nice Buff daughters.

So overall my advice is to source the best pair of Greys you can find and afford to move your programme forward and develop your type that you prefer. The fun is in the planning and deciding what traits you feel you want to develop in your own flock.

For us its developing size, keel and dewlap but in Buff ganders and we always seem to be re-assessing our own birds' strengths and weaknesses to help us make future pairing decisions

I did do a picture that showed desirable features in a Dewlap which may help you a little more. Hope that's helped a little by giving some feedback and suggestions

Pete

 

[psue]

PSue - what a lovely flock of Buffs and you must be so pleased with them. They look like big healthy birds and a great Buff foundation flock.

You asked for an honest critique and I can do that but please do not take any offence as none intended.

Overall you need to select for more dewlap and keel development though this is often not so pronounced with the females. To help with this I would consider investing in a high quality Grey (or Grey split) Gander that has good size, good dewlap, good keel, depth of body etc Then breed him to one of your Buff females and select their best Grey (split for Buff) sons. Some will be good some not so but you need to run them on for a while to make sure. Some lines can be very slow to develop and you often find even more dewlap and keel development in the 2nd year. However I like to see the beginnings of a dewlap and keel by 9 months old.

Retain the best Split and breed him to another of your Buffs which will give you the chance to breed your own Buff ganders and again select them for health and best features.

However Napoleon does have strong head and good dewlap and if he was paired to a very good grey female then you'll improve the type again and have the chance to breed some very nice Buff daughters.

So overall my advice is to source the best pair of Greys you can find and afford to move your programme forward and develop your type that you prefer. The fun is in the planning and deciding what traits you feel you want to develop in your own flock.

For us its developing size, keel and dewlap but in Buff ganders and we always seem to be re-assessing our own birds' strengths and weaknesses to help us make future pairing decisions

I did do a picture that showed desirable features in a Dewlap which may help you a little more. Hope that's helped a little by giving some feedback and suggestions

Pete

Pete Dear..... Napoleon is a girl. We've been talking about getting a Split gander and plan to reassess everyone in the fall.
Napoleon and Josephine are from the rescue flock that Iain Utah got last fall.
Louis and Marie we got local in February and they had been fed a corn heavy diet.

 

[animaladdictions]

Pete Dear..... Napoleon is a girl. We've been talking about getting a Split gander and plan to reassess everyone in the fall.
Napoleon and Josephine are from the rescue flock that Iain Utah got last fall.
Louis and Marie we got local in February and they had been fed a corn heavy diet.

In my humble opinion...it looks to me as though your best start would be to pair up Louis and Napoleon...those two have nice sized dewlaps and seem to be heavier keeled and have better carriage than the other two. My goal is to eventually have a flock that look just like Pete's birds...although I wasn't able to this year, I'm SO hopeful that I can purchase at least a pair from Holderread's next year. Pete's foundation gander came from them if I'm not mistaken. As for buffs, I highly recommend Alison Grells line! Her buffs are A-MA-ZING....I was so hoping to get a couple goslings from her this year but she didn't have any available so I bit the bullet a few days ago and bought some of her eggs! They just came in this morning. While the air cells were a bit wonky, the eggs were in good shape and I'm HOPING AND PRAYING for at least ONE baby out of them!!!!

 

[psue]

In my humble opinion...it looks to me as though your best start would be to pair up Louis and Napoleon...those two have nice sized dewlaps and seem to be heavier keeled and have better carriage than the other two. My goal is to eventually have a flock that look just like Pete's birds...although I wasn't able to this year, I'm SO hopeful that I can purchase at least a pair from Holderread's next year. Pete's foundation gander came from them if I'm not mistaken. As for buffs, I highly recommend Alison Grells line! Her buffs are A-MA-ZING....I was so hoping to get a couple goslings from her this year but she didn't have any available so I bit the bullet a few days ago and bought some of her eggs! They just came in this morning. While the air cells were a bit wonky, the eggs were in good shape and I'm HOPING AND PRAYING for at least ONE baby out of them!!!!

does she have a web sight? I've not found anything and was looking for pictures of her birds.

 

[Iain Utah]

Allison's website is http://thequackhouse.com/.

 

[Marty1876]

Today is the court date for dog attack. If any of you remember this, from November 17 of last year when I lost so many birds.

In time, every single injured bird that wasn't killed outright that day died, except one buff dewlap Toulouse. We lost Baby the buff girl and lucky the unlucky white pekin duck slowly over a couple of months. Today is the first (and hopefully last but I have no idea) court date for this. I'm bringing my daughters too (I'm the witness called to court by order) since we all found them at the same time, not 30 minutes after leaving home with all the birds safe and sound.

She does now.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. We left, ironically, to run and get 36" hen wire to put along any fence a goose could fit its head through. Came back, 27 minutes later, and captured these two blood covered dogs in my pens. They killed 1/2 of my turkeys, 2 toulouse, 1 sebastopol, 7 ancona, eveyr single khaki campbell I own (even the egg layers), 2 muscovey hens (unless they flew- they are mia), and my last chicken that was in an outdoor pen. They were able to get into 3 different pens when they torn though a corner and breached the layer pen first. They went over thier fence, and got the turkeys that couldn't fly, then were with the geese when we pulled up. I beat them to a corner with a fence post, and called the cops. We've got it down as over $1000 worth of birds, and it's a felony. They are in police custody at Emporia KS now. Due to the vicious nature of the crime, and the fact that they dark one attempted to attack one officer 2 times, they are considered vicious and will be put down.

I have 2 ducks (ancona) and 1 buff in the barn with baby girl trying to keep them alive tonight. The buff is bruised and terrified, the ducks are badly injured. I've washed and tried the worst duck, and its actually in the bathroom wrapped in rags, docterd for its physical injuries, which may be too severe to survice. I'm going to go drink my last two bottles of wine now.

 

[psue]

that you only have to do this once and it's a positive ruling

 

[Marty1876]

6 months 13 days after dog attack is the court date.

I suppose this is normal. I have little experience in courts, honestly, and I doubt t.v. is an accurate reflection of reality. I hope it's just today. I'm bringing girls in case more witness's are in order or helpful.

 

[RURU]

Good Luck Marty with the case....