Has anyone bred a White Gander to a Grey Goose? What were the results?

[pete55]

Hi laurie

Thank you for that information and it would be great to see a picture of the gander that you've kept. I suspect the colour will be similar to the dilute African Gander in the picture above. What colour were the females?

Pete

 

[Oregon Blues]

Are there other pied geese besides the Pomeranian? I don't see how that could be sex linked since both geese and ganders are all pied.

 

[Kevin565]

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West of England geese is the only other pied breed I know of.

 

[Cottage Rose]

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I'm I wrong in thinking the pied gene is not the same as the Pomeranian pattern?

I have a friend who had a White Sebastopol gander x Canadian Goose breeding that = all light grey offspring.

 

[Goose and Fig]

Quote:
I'm I wrong in thinking the pied gene is not the same as the Pomeranian pattern?

I have a friend who had a White Sebastopol gander x Canadian Goose breeding that = all light grey offspring.

Oooh I am hoping that holds true and I get some colored babies this spring!!!!

BTW Cotton Patch are considered pied, I think. And yes, Pomeranian are typically referred to as saddleback, but it depends on the source. Some sources seem to describe saddleback and pied as the same.
In breeding finches though, pied is a ramdom pattern, unlike saddleback. Hmmmm.

 

[Cottage Rose]

Thats what I was wondering/thinking, that pied is random markings and Poms have a distinct "saddleback" pattern.

 

[Oregon Blues]

Saddleback is definitely spotted and it certainly isn't extensive Irish Spotting (tuxedo) because heads are always colored. I think of pied as random spotting but am not being able to bring up a mental picture of any geese that are randomly spotted. Saddlebacks can have all sorts of different sizes and shapes to their spots, but they don't ever seem to be random.

In other species, in order to have pied, you must have a pied gene. You don't get pied by random color crossings. Or, possibly, since Pete is in Britain, maybe he means something else by pied than what I am getting the mental image of.

I am just unable to think of any spotted geese except for saddleback.

 

[Oregon Blues]

I googled a bunch of photos of Cotton Patch geese, because I had thought they came in saddleback, not really spotted. They do seem to have a very poor quality of saddleback, like nobody has ever paid attention to the markings. However, I would say that their spotting is definitely saddleback pattern and not random.

 

[Jen C]

I am pretty sure the "pied gene" is responsible for the saddleback coloring. Also, just because both goose and gander are saddleback or pied does not mean that the gene is not sex-linked. I have Buff Africans and Buff is sex linked in geese. If you breed buff to buff then you will get all buff offspring. However, as an example next year I will be breeding one buff gander to a brown goose. I will get all buff female offspring and males that are brown but split to buff.

 

[pete55]

This discussion is starting to raise more questions than answers

It appears that the genes responsible for the Pied or Saddleback pattern may be slightly more complex than first suspected. It appears in breeding Saddleback x Saddleback then 100% of the offspring will be Saddleback even if the 'Pied' gene is sex linked or not. As Jen C states if the Pied gene is sex linked then it should behave exactly like the Buff gene.

To stabilise the typical Saddleback pattern breeders can 'select' for eveness of pattern and it appears over time the pattern can be controlled to a degree by selction. However Orgeon raised the very interesting point of trying to think of other forms of Pied geese.

I can identify another two breeds that are also 'Pied' but their pattern is due to the Dilution gene and NOT the Pied gene. These would be Pilgrims and West of England. The inheritance of their pattern is due to the sex linked Dilution gene. A double dose in the males has the effect of removing most, if not all the colour and a White gander results. In the case of the female she can only ever inherit a single Dilution gene which is incompletely dominant. The result being a lighter grey coloured bird but often with some additional (and variable) expression of white on the face and/or body.

However in the case of the West of England breed the gander is white (or almost white) but the female exhibits a Pied pattern but usually lacking complete colour to the head.

WEST OF ENGLAND FEMALES

Although a smaller breed, I think the Shetland is the same with females having variable amount of pattern due to the Dilution gene.

It appears in the Sebastopols that in some cases males with a single Dilution gene and carrying pied may appear as White birds with random splashes of colour on their body. It may be that the genes may interact slightly to create this variation but it is not proven.

At the present the evidence seems to be indicating the the Pied gene is NOT sex linked but more evidence of matings is required to prove or disprove this theory. If the Pied gene is sex linked then the mating of a White Gander (Embden, Sebastopol, etc) to a Grey female would result in Dilute males and White females. If it is not sex linked then ALL the offspring will be a light Grey colour.

Hope that adds to this interesting discussion

Pete