Dilute Genetics Question

[Goosegrrl]

I've had geese for several years now, but recently lost the gander of my trio of Pilgrims to coyotes after he flew over our back fence during daily zoomies.

Anyway, in my search for a new gander I ended up with a standard white colored Tufted Roman and what I think is a hatchery Toulouse goose that he was partnered with, and ALSO a young tufted gander that is Dilute colored and has sectional heterochromia (blue\brown) in both eyes.
Now, I was told that the young gander is Tufted Roman x Pilgrim. But I was also expecting that the partner that came with the TR gander would be a Pilgrim, but she is not. However they had already sold several other geese and one of them could have been the mother to the young gander.
From my understanding of the Dilute genes - in order for the young mixed gander to be incomplete dilute colored then didn't his mother have to be the Pilgrim rather than the dark gray toulouse? And is this coloring common with the crossing of white to a sex linked dilute such as the Pilgrim.

*note- I wasn't really worried about finding a Pilgrim gander as my ladies are not suitable for breeding(pink legs).

 

[Miss Lydia]

@Pyxis

Sorry for your loss.

 

[Pyxis]

So, white in geese is achieved by the combination of the Dilute gene and Spotting gene. Meaning a Tufted Roman gander, who is white, is genetically Dilute. This is also why Tufted Romans, like all white breeds, can be sexed by color at hatch if you know what to look for.

Dilute is also dominant. That is to say, since his father was Dilute, it could have been either the pilgrim or the toulouse that was the mother, it doesn't matter, he would be Dilute either way.

In fact, if he in incomplete Dilute colored, then that points more to the toulouse being his mother, because as a male, he would have definitely inherited a copy of Dilute from the mother. If he didn't and you can visually tell that (not sure if you can visually tell the difference between one copy and two, never tried such a cross myself) then that means he couldn't have gotten a copy from his mother, ruling out the pilgrim.

Note that because the white color is a combo of Spotting and Dilute, that genetically he must also be split for pied.

Also, the genetics involved mean that adding white will ruin adult autosexing coloration in a couple generations, since you'll be getting white male and female goslings along with the dilute white males.

There's also the question of what might lurking 'underneath' the white, since white masks buff and blue/silver. You could be in for quite the wildcards in terms of goslings, depending.