geese cross breeds Embden x Landes possibility

[Eric Rosario]

hello, I would like to ask for some hints in geese cross breeding as I was not able to find any answer for my research.

currently i have 3 Landes geese females which are over one year old, this year they hatched first goslings. We bought 4+4 white x gray goslings too this year awating what will be their size to keep a gander for the 3 ladies as the previous was removed (long story) unfortunately only one goose looks like a bit bigger than the ladies are and we wanted to mate them with a bigger gander to obtain bigger goslings following year.

Landes ladies are considered here as medium size goose and the large breeds catched my interests especially embden, they are rare in our region but we've found a breeder who has Embden goslings and he promised us a gander if we want to buy.

and so my question is, how much bigger can the gander be to mate with females? per the descriptions per breeds the Embden is 12kg Goose is 10kg, Landes is 8-9kg or a bitt less. I'm not able to find answers as most breeders prefer pure breeds but I would like to keep the females as they should have following years eggs about 50 per one goose and eventually go broody and hatch them.
My thoughts are that bigger sized Gander like Embden with medium sized female Landes could result in bigger sized goslings than should be from medium sized alone.

I've found one topic about cross breeding and there was mentioned that Chinese geese are used for bigger egg production in crossing and Embden gander for larger carcas production.

please advise. thank you .

 

[Miss Lydia]

@servpolice

 

[servpolice]

In the past I crossed so many goose breeds just to see results and it was a fun hobby.

Heavy goose breeds are able to breed with light goose breeds yes. There would only be an issue if the goose is too small simply because the large gander will find it hard to mate successful due to the size difference.

Some breeds such as the Greylag have wide and flat backs so it's easy for a gander to mate.

Chinese geese have a thin upright back so the gander with find it more awkward to try and stay on top of her.

Embden ganders usually have successful fertility so an Embden gander knowns how it goes. Fertility in heavy breeds drop dramatically after 7-8 years.

Heavy breeds have no issues mating with medium goose breeds so you don't have to worry.

I crossed breeds together to try and get a goose that looks similar to the Steinbacher breed but it takes generations of goslings of different bloodlines to get to what you want.

I also breed to get bigger sized birds.

So here is how it goes: The Embden breeds with your Landes females and the outcome will be white males with random brown/black feathers on its body or you get lavender coloured males. The females are either all white or what I experienced was all brown females. One year I did get an all brown male but usually all brown goslings are female (cross breeding gives you suprises all the time).

Your goslings will either have strong genes from the father or from the mother so in other words all the goslings can be either be big like the Embden or medium sized like the Landes (both males and females).

You will notice the goslings that grow the quickest and biggest will be big adults and the smaller goslings won't get as big but some crosses such as African/Chinese geese will give you a random gosling that looks like a runt but ends up being the largest. The case usually is the fastest growers are for breeding perfection.

If you want to continue getting big geese you pick the fastest growers for future breeding and they should produce goslings that will be larger in size and reduces the chance of getting small slow growing goslings.

All the goslings you want in the end are goslings that will end up like the Embden gander.

ChineseXEmbden were my least favourite cross because the males got shy quick and their look wasn't that nice.

This cross gives you problems in a flock too because the males and females are bossy.

It's funny how crossing breeds together gives your geese a completely different personality.

I never took notice for my egg production in my geese since I never took their eggs so they laid about 8 or 9 and began brooding but I do believe good egg laying breeds crossed with heavy goose breeds gives you a cross that has a decent sized carcass and has good egg laying ability.

Hope it helped somehow!

 

[Eric Rosario]

Hello, yes that was the answer I'm looking for, we have a promised Embeden so I'm gonna buy it anyway. I believe he will find his spot between the ladies, we have now total 11 geese and if we need to remove the youth which is not going to remain for future reproduction. Once the females are on their own and new gander will arrive he should be ale to find his spot with them till January, right?

I have some experience with genetics but it was on hamsters where i was able to mix and split colours. I have found some gene calculators where it showed me that the White gander and gray goose should produce white males and gray females probably the same colouring that you mentioned. unfortunately there are no that many colours at geese. White, Gray are most common, there is some yellow and silver and possibly brown from chineese with the black beek and legs. do you have any pictures of cross breeds to share?

other thing are the genes that affect the size and body shapes, as you wrote they will be ether bigger or smaller, do you know if it's one gene or more that affect the size?

For example Kholmogor is a cross breed of chinesse and normal geese as all geese breeds came from these two as it was merged it could be split but i would like to stay with embden to avoid the knob and the "beard" under the head that has

I was thinking about the laying period too, it's said that Landes should have first year 30 eggs and following 2-5 years about 80 eggs from January to July but it seems you need to put them in hatchery. Our Geese hatched two goslings (we messed up the genders and kept two geese and one shy gander with different lighter colour which was goose too, so only few eggs were fertile before the gander was removed) see the picture. I wanted both gray and white goslings but there were no white only one gosling was a bitt lighter so i took it and it was different a bit in shape and colour as the others. as the body shape is different than regular landes females we mistook it for gander, she is a goose at the end and we ended up without a gander so our ladies were broody on empty eggs. This light gray female hatched two goslings from the eggs that were fertile but all other eggs like 50 in total were empty

 

[servpolice]

Once you get the gander I would put him in his pen and add 1 female at a time. So he can slowly get used to the female and add another every 10 minutes. And they will settle well.

There is white, pied, brown, gray, lavender, blue and buff colours. Colour cross breeding was a thing I did too.
I have pictures here on Byc but I don't seem to see my photos? I can try and find some pictures. I only have Buff and Brown african geese so I don't cross breed anymore. The Buff and brown mate together but only give pure colours (buff or brown goslings).

The goslings from the Embden and Landes cross will have genes from both parents. It depends on who has the stronger genes. Some goslings will be big, some small and some have equally (50/50). It depends on what you want in the end so if you want to continue getting the fathers genes you will pick out the biggest goslings. The goslings with the fathers gene should be bred with goslings of the same cross and size but different bloodlines to get goslings that will be big in size. Continue with another generation of goslings and you should start getting bigger and bigger geese. It's years of work but rewarding.

The Kholmogory breed always fascinated me and I always tried to find out how they got to how they are now. I think it started with African and dewlap Toulouse geese. (The cross literally looks like a white african and a white dewlap toulouse). I've read that Buff African/toulouse geese were maybe involved

If you want good egg production it depends on many factors with the feed you give them being a big factor.
You should also leave 1 or 2 eggs in the nest and take out any newly laid eggs so she will continue to lay and not go broody otherwise she will not lay anymore.

You can tell what colour goslings will be when they're older.

Brown/grey toulouse gosling: black beak with very dark down (yellow and dark green).

Brown/grey African/Chinese gosling: similar to the toulouse but less dark in colour witb some goslings having grey down instead of yellow.

Embden goslings: yellow with light green down(males) and yellow with dark green down(females).

Pilgrim goslings: Brown goslings similar to toulouse (female) and yellow with light green similar to the male Embden goslings (male).

Pied/pomeranian/Saddleback goslings: very dark green in colour which almost looks black with very bright yellow.

Buff goslings: Brown beaks with light fawny down.

Lavender/Steinbacher goslings: Purple beak with light purple tint and yellow down.

White African/Chinese goslings: only goslings with one colour (light yellow).

African and Chinese geese have knob spots on their head so it's easy to tell the difference between the Toulouse, Embden etc.

Some geese look brown while others look grey. Pick any geese with the grey colour and breed them together to get the chances of getting more grey geese.

Genetics are fun but patience is important.

 

[Eric Rosario]

thank you once again for extensive information i'm really grateful. I will move forward with the order to get the embden gander. When I was at the breeder like one month ago the goslings were like 1 month old so i suppose these geese are about 2-3 months old but should be nearly adult size, mine grown to full size in 3 months.
i suppose mature geese will chase him away maybe if he is bigger than they are they wont dare that soon. on the other side i would like to obtain him sooner before he matures as he might not tolerate us when he is older.
We might keep him separately from others but close to see each other.

I've done several colour mixing teories and put them in practise on hamsters for several years they are best to prove your teories on genetics

now i have a plan on ducks as i've finaly found a gene calculator and beside the teory i need to have the animals too, i was lucky last time as a we found a lady selling several coloured ducklings so i have a plan now

with Geese we have here gray, white and pilgrim (white and gray) its rare to see different, sometimes there are some chinese or cuban.

E.

 

[Eric Rosario]

just got an update from the breeder, he told me that would like to remove the emdens entirely from his breeding so he is offering us his 6 years old female and 2 years old male and one gosling (only one survivor this year) not sure about the gender.
the price is fair enough so i'm about to buy them all 3 and somehow would like to merge with my 3 landes ladies. I believe 2 year old gander wont have any issues with the ladies but i'm not sure about the female.
are such mature animals able to get used to us? i think if we gonna buy 'em now august september they have plenty of time to get used to each other till the january and feb for breeding. wont they be too aggressive against us, i mean mature animals are harder to adapt to new home and new owners, just thinkin maybe they will tear our trouses down once they will start to lay eggs

 

[servpolice]

Nice!

Adult geese will adapt perfectly fine to a new environment with the other 3 geese and if the gander and the goose are introduced together it would be better.

The females with establish the pecking order but that should over soon. It's only a problem with males.

The females can bully so just watch for that but with the gander in there the 6 year old goose should be fine.

Newbies are always picked on but since there is no other gander the male will adapt fine.

How old is the gosling?

It depends on how the person was with the geese to determine what their nature is.

They will definitely be ready for breeding season.

 

[Eric Rosario]

would wonder what the gosling gender is, if its young male it might have problem when mature if female she can join as fifth female and anyway you said their fertility drops after 7th year, so a 6 year old female can last 1-2 more years then she is done.
We just spoke about it yesterday how we transport them home as they are mature and not babies we used to bring in small box. a dog cage should be fine, my friend told me to tie their beek so they wont be biting or screaming during the transport i suppose they will be silent and calm as they will be afraind what's goin on, but definetly a cage not a paper box should be used. I've been already thinkin about it before.
ano more thing, so there will be 3 females they are together currently with som ducks, two new mature embden should be next group separately and the gosling should not join any of them first day, depending on it's age i can put it to ducklings we have at age of 2 months depending how old and big the gosling will be.

 

[servpolice]

If the gosling is a male you won't have any issues until he is around 2 years old.

If the gosling is over 2 months old and is used to the other 2 Embden geese I think it's best to allow it to join the rest of the flock.

As geese get older the fertility drops but they can still breed but the number of fertile eggs will drop slowly every breeding season. She still will be fit for breeding for another few years.

When I transport geese a big cage is the best way. Since you will be driving they will sit down to avoid wobbling.

I never heard of anyone tieing a goose's beak? It would seem cruel to do so too. Geese pant in veicles and tieing a beak wouldn't allow them to pant and cause stress to a goose. Just leave them in a cage and it should be fine.

If you have 2 separate enclosures for the geese that would be perfect so they can see eachother and get used to eachother.

But either way since you have no gander there shouldn't be big issues.

If the gosling is under 2 months it should be separated but somehow still be seen by the flock.

A lone gosling can become very tame if interacting with it often.