I got my geese today!!

[jlbpooh]

My daughter and I picked up our new geese today. They two breeding pairs of almost full blood Pilgrims. Of course it had to be rainy and yucky outside, everything is all mud today, although the ducks love having the big puddles in their pen. We named the geese Jack and Jill, and Pebbles and Bam Bam. I was surprised that my guineas didn't have to "talk" about the new arrivals even louder than normal. I just wanted to share, I am very excited about getting them.

Another shot of them looking at the muddy duck mess:

 

[big_brahmas]

gorgeous!

 

[chickensducks&agoose]

SUPER CUTE!

 

[AilsVonHelson]

Ooooo, loving the gray ones! The messy ground only makes the whites look extra clean.

 

[ShadyGlade]

Why are they 'almost' pure ? They look okay to me, what are they mixed with? I think they are very pretty. Then again I love geese and have 24 with twelve eggs in the 'bator and eight more going in tomorrow!

 

[jlbpooh]

He said they may have been mixed with a Toulouse at one point. He bought the farm 32 years ago and his great-uncle said they were Pilgrim Geese. There was 1 female Toulouse added at one point (I think he said 12 years ago), so they might not be 100% Pilgrim. I have never seen Pilgrims in person, so I have nothing to compare them to. The ganders have a few dark feathers in their tails, and a couple on each wing. I am not sure if that is normal or not, since I have only seen pictures of them. The one has a gray spot on its neck. They both have gray under their wings, but I have head that is acceptable. The geese have some white on their heads, near their beaks, I wasn't sure if that was normal, but the rest of their coloration looks like what I have seen in pictures. All of his birds looked like these except his Chinese pair and the ones he called mules that were produced when some wild Canadian geese mated with some of his. He said he never kept any offspring from the Chinese pair, and now they are too old to reproduce anymore.

 

[BlueLagoonRabbitry]

Im sure they are pure other wise you would not be able to still color sex them if they were mix.

 

[ShadyGlade]

I have Pilgrims and they look like yours. The white on the face is normal in the females. My breeding male is named "Dot" due to the spot of grey under his chin. I have had males in the past that only had the darker feathers in the wings or on the body, but I have seen many that looked like yours also. If they are correctly colored sex-linked at hatch I'd say you have Pilgrims and leave out the almost.

 

[kenman]

Are those duck eggs in the next pen over?

 

[jlbpooh]

Yes, they are duck eggs. The crazy ducks have a nice coop with nice nesting boxes and nice straw and they would rather sit outside no matter what the weather is like and lay eggs in the mud. They had layed in the nesting boxes and the eggs were accumulating. I thought someone might actually go broody, but then we had really cold weather a couple of weeks ago. I knew the eggs were no longer any good after that, so we fed them to the pigs. Even though I put a couple more eggs in the box and it is right next to their feed, they still think it is more fun to lay them in mud when it is available. Ha, Ha. They have been laying well though. I got 4 eggs in 24 hours from 3 ducks. They are Khaki Campbells.