Difference between cotton patch and pilgrim?

[m1chelle1]

Ok. I just picked up two more pilgrims to add to my beautiful flock. I am aware pilgrim and cotton patch look pretty similar, anyone know of any ways to tell the difference? These new girls are slightly lighter in color than my pilgrims, and I’m starting to wonder if I got my hands on the elusive cotton patch
I was investigating online and all I can find is descriptions of both, which are similar descriptions. Not sure if color is the only way to tell? I’ll post pictures when we get them home.

Cheers
M

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

The Livestock Conservancy has a detailed article that may help. Some of the differences are subtle, but the single lobe in the CP is one.

Congrats on your new geese!

 

[m1chelle1]

The Livestock Conservancy has a detailed article that may help. Some of the differences are subtle, but the single lobe in the CP is one.

Congrats on your new geese!

Thank you... yeahhh ive read the description on the conservancy website many times, it still doesnt really give (IMHO) a great idea for someone (never having been around CP before) to tell much of a difference. I have 4 Pilgrims, and i have two with single lobes and two with double lobes, so its like
my new girls do have double lobes, and in different lighting they do look darker now haha, having a hard time now telling all my pilgrim girls apart. Guess thats prob a good thing
what gets me about these descriptions, is that within both CP and pilgrims, there can be some slight color variations. SO like say I have a supposed pilgrim gander, and he has just slight lighter than "slate gray" wing tips, and then i get a CP gander, and his wingtips are just so ever slightly lighter than that. Is that really the only difference? If thats the case, it gets me thinking....how do i tell them apart just by looking at them? I cant? And also, makes me wonder, these are the two autosexing breeds, would a pilgrim gander bred to a CP female (or vice versa) produce autosexing offspring still? I know a bit about genetics, enough to keep my flock from being inbred, thank goodness, but i dont know enough about autosexing to determine that. Would be an interesting experiment.

Any who

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

I get what you're saying - some of the differences are subtle. Can you post pics? There are folks who raise CP on here (like @JanetMarie) that may be able to help you identify if you do have CP.

With regard to gander color, there are apparently some lines that have more color (gray markings) than others, too.

Since CP are even more rare than Pilgrim, I think it's more likely they're Pilgrims than CP if they all appear to match the Pilgrim breed standard...but comparison photos would help.

 

[dheltzel]

Thank you... yeahhh ive read the description on the conservancy website many times, it still doesnt really give (IMHO) a great idea for someone (never having been around CP before) to tell much of a difference. I have 4 Pilgrims, and i have two with single lobes and two with double lobes, so its like
my new girls do have double lobes, and in different lighting they do look darker now haha, having a hard time now telling all my pilgrim girls apart. Guess thats prob a good thing
what gets me about these descriptions, is that within both CP and pilgrims, there can be some slight color variations. SO like say I have a supposed pilgrim gander, and he has just slight lighter than "slate gray" wing tips, and then i get a CP gander, and his wingtips are just so ever slightly lighter than that. Is that really the only difference? If thats the case, it gets me thinking....how do i tell them apart just by looking at them? I cant? And also, makes me wonder, these are the two autosexing breeds, would a pilgrim gander bred to a CP female (or vice versa) produce autosexing offspring still? I know a bit about genetics, enough to keep my flock from being inbred, thank goodness, but i dont know enough about autosexing to determine that. Would be an interesting experiment.

Any who

Pilgrim X CP will absolutely retain the autosexing.
Autosexing in geese is caused by the sexlinked, partially dominant dilution gene. It can be masked by other genes, though. CP seem to have a different version of the "spot" gene (makes pied or saddleback) that would normally turn a bird with dilution to be all white (white + dilute is what makes Embdens and Romans white, there is no single gene for white in geese). There is a FB group on Pilgrim genetics where the undesirability of the spot gene is highlighted. They occasionally discusss the spot in CP, but as they are mostly from the UK, where CP do not exist, the discussion of that is limited.

Making an autosexing goose is not really that hard. Dave Holderread did it with his Oregon Mini Geese. I intend to try it with my Sebastopols if I end up with the genes in my very young flock that would allow that.