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I'm hoping to send you a blue goose so that you can concentrate on breeding for blue since you'll have the blue gene on both sides. Although, with this gander you'll be able to breed him with almost anything. The buff, lavendar, and blues require the recessive genes in both parents to get offspring in both sexes. Otherwise, the parent with the color will only pass it off to their opposite sex. For example: my gray saddleback gander carries the recessive buff color and when bred to another gray saddleback goose would pass that buff color gene on to his daughter resulting in a buff saddleback goose. With this breeding, you would only get buff saddleback females and no males. To get buff saddlebacks in both genders I'd have to breed that buff saddleback goose back to her father or to another buff or split-to-buff gander.
In the meantime, I plan to concentrate on breeding for buff saddlebacks. My goal for next spring is to produce both smooth and curly breasted gray and buff saddlebacks. I'm also looking forward to seeing what those "show quality" whites that I picked up in South Carolina will produce next spring. They are in moult right now so I haven't posted pictures of them yet. Three of them have some wing issues but I'm not sure if it's due to genetics, or injuries from turtle bites. The owner had an infestation of snapping turtles in her pond that terrorized her waterfowl. She had a duck that lost a leg and a goose that lost a wing. One of the white ganders had an injury to the wing but they were able to save his wing. Next spring, I plan to keep as many of the whites as I can to grow them out so that I can see what happens with their wings. I'm hoping for the best because these geese have a lot of potential. Their beaks and feet are VERY orange, and their feathers are VERY curly.
