Do Pilgrim geese all have blue eyes?

[NYRIR]

I just wondered if it is only the males? Are they born with a different color and then change to blue?

 

[kuntrygirl]

I was wondering the same thing. I was sitting in the chicken yard looking at mine and I remembered that I have 1 that has blue eyes. I love the blue eyes.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
My ganders changed to blue eyes I don't think the geese did.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Blue eyes is sex-linked and recessive; the same thing that would make the gander white also makes his eyes blue. So the goose should not have blue eyes.

 

[NYRIR]

I asked because I got supposedly a pair of 2 year old white pilgrim geese from a guy. They are both mostly white, little bit of light grey where it should be.There is a difference in the bill color...one is more orange than the other.Feet are the same color. Behavior is hard to tell for me as I am new to geese.Anyway, here is a pic of the ones I got with 3 goslings I bought from the same guy. he claimed he had "African Toulouse" and White Pilgrims....

Here is the one with the darker orange bill...this one used to be more quiet but is now really "hissy"....along with the only grey gosling I got...

Here is one of the goslings that appears to be a pilgrim male...I got 2 like this and one grey one..

here is the other pilgrim with a lighter bill and a small knob??This one used to be more "hissy" but is a bit better now...

For behavior......the first adult pictured was taking care of the goslings for me...then somehow, that one got ousted and since they have hung around the second.For the first week the older 2 were sticking together.Then i let them "babysit" the goslings and for a couple of weeks they all hung together but the goslings were closer to the first one.Then it all changed.Now the first goose/gander OBSESSIVELY hangs around the duck pen all day and the goslings stick with the second adult.At night,they bed down close together by choice??Both white geese have blue eyes but he swore it was a pair...as for the grey gosling...it has no white around the head/bill area so i am not sure if it is a pilgrim female or not.This has been frustrating for me since I like to know what i have.I would love to vent sex them but have never done it and these geese are not really people lovers.I have 2 Toulouse that are wonderfully friendly but not these guys.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Pilgrim females are not white, they are grey, almost like a toulouse, with some white on them. If they are both pilgrims they are both male.

ETA: The one with the knob is mixed with Chinese most likely, they are probably all mixed.

Pilgrim males should be all white with maybe a little grey on the wings. Pilgrim females should be all grey but can have white usually on the face. Both should have orange bills and legs and no knobs.

 

[NYRIR]

Yeah, i know...that's why I am confused..one gosling of 3 is grey but has no white on the head at all...but I don't know who the parents are to them as he had them separate from any geese when I picked them up. He gave me the 2 adults free claiming they were male and female. On his property he had white geese and grey geese but called the grey ones "african Toulouse"(which I have never heard of and NONE had a knob like an african) and the white ones "white pilgrims".What I SAW there were some grey geese (sitting on nests) also a white one sitting on a nest...and a grey goose he said was a toulouse.So it seems he had mixes or at least will have....so confusing!!

 

[NYRIR]

What do you think by the pics? Someone before has claimed the one with the small knob looks like a mix with chinese as well. he didn't claim to have any but I am so inexperienced, I would not have noticed...

 

[shelleyd2008]

Since that grey gosling appears to have an orange bill and no white I would say it is a toulouse.

Were the geese (white and grey) that he had the same size? Pilgrims should be smaller than toulouse, I would say he had Embdens and Toulouse. And you're right, there is no such thing as 'african' toulouse.

 

[NYRIR]

Quote:
Oh, that would be great if it were a toulouse. I have a pair and want to keep a third for back up reasons so no one gets lonely should one get hurt/die. The white geese seem large to me, but I have no full grown Toulouse yet to compare. The geese he had were all running together. If my memory serves me right, they seemed close in size anyway. Right now I can tell you that this years goslings...all 3 I got from him and the 2 Toulouse I got from elsewhere (all hatched this year)are almost as big as the white "2 year old" geese.When are they at their adult sizes? I don't have exact dates to go by, just that I know they are from this year.

ETA....the one grey one is so similar to the other 2 toulouse I have that I can only tell them apart by behavior...do you know if all pilgrim females get some white with age?