Sebastopol geese - selecting breeding stock, color genetics, and color improvement

[CelticOaksFarm]

As the title says, this thread will discuss the color varieties as well as genetics behind them and selecting appropriate breeding stock (colored or white varieties).

• Not all Sebastopols are created equal
• Not all Sebastopols should be bred
• Color varieties are experimental, and extreme differences in quality are available.

Post pictures of your birds if you have questions on color or quality or want help from others concerning if they should be bred, or how to pair for improvement.

 

[Cottage Rose]

Good topic!
When introducing a new color to any breed...waterfowl, poultry or whatever, type and in this case, even feathering is secondary to color.
Once you get the color you want, you can work on type.
Dave Holderread has been the premier breeder of colored
Sebastopols and has done it longer and more successfully than anybody else.
He has made it pretty easy for those of us who are working with colored Sebastopols in that we have a good starting
point often with decent birds type and feather wise (some even SQ) but there's always room for improvement.

EDITED TO ADD: while some of the birds in this thread are smooth looking this is from their American heritage which is a breed commonly used to introduce color to Sebastopols. While colored or smooth Sebastopols are not APA accepted they can be utilized in breeding programs for colored Sebastopols. Some of my best colored Sebastopols have a smooth father so using smooth does not necessarilly adversely effect the quality of curly offspring

Couple of my 2012 saddleback girls.

 

[DaveK]

Celtic, you had mentioned the lilacs and pastels and first I will share some thoughts that came out of a conversation with Peter Banks about the lilacs. When I first saw pictures of your Peaches I thought "Oh, I've seen that before only gray". Fourty years ago the buff American was not a well developed exhibition variety. Size and type were often lacking and the color wasn't clear. It sometimes had a gray cast to the feathers in the same way that Peaches has her blue cast. It wasn't uncommon for the buffs to have been bred from direct or recent gray influence. That gray cast was considered a fault in the exhibition community and has been mentioned in books authored by Dave Holderread, Darrel Sheraw and Oscar Grow. Mr. Grow interestingly pegs that gray cast primarily on the females. Buff breeders have largely worked out the color modifiers/factors/whatever gave some of the buff birds that gray cast. Fast forward to I think 2010 when two buff goslings hatched in Maine. Two buffs sired by a blue gander carrying buff. One was a curly breasted bird with a fair amount of substance and a clear, bright buff color according to the last unretouched photos of her I saw. The very smooth sister had that same wash of color I had seen years ago but this time it had a distinctly bluish tone. I asked Pete if he thought that we might be seeing the same thing as we did years ago now that it was possible to be breeding buffs from blues. It makes sense and he seemed willing to at least consider it. I am not saying it is or has to be so. In wondering about it I am, as someone said, just trying to make sense out of nonsense. Which it isn't really, just that there are questions. The blue color has sort of tossed a monkey wrench into a lot of what we all used to understand. My thoughts and wonderings about the lilacs are just that as is anything I post here. Thoughts and viewpoints and maybe a strongly held opinion but not a someone having to be right or wrong. On an open forum such as BYC I do not expect universal agreement between any of the posters. What I also do not expect is a nasty response here or PM in my inbox just because something I state may fly in the face of other's beliefs. This is not politics but a poultry hobby. I hate to have to state something so negative but there is a reason with my intense interest in geese that I have stayed away from the Goose Forum here for a year or more. Celtic has started what could be a thought provoking thread that we all have an opportunity to learn from if the old negativity can be nipped in the bud.

 

[DaveK]

Celtic, if thinking that I don't know Jack Droppings about the lilacs I am even more lost with what you might call the pastels. We do know that there are dilute factors existing in other goose breeds. It's certainly possible with the Sebastopols. Anything color wise with these guys can be complicated by the fact that color on the mutated feather often does not look like the same color does on a normal feathered bird. It can vary a lot on the same streamer or look faded and washy in places. Is this a function of the color or the feather structure? I have always felt that this is because of the altered structure of the mutated feather. Even a smooth breasted bird hasn't the same kind of back feather as a normal bird though it lays flat and smooth and basically appears normal. Here though is something interesting; what about birds who have a base color that seems diluted from something else? I am not talking about the individual variations that happen within a color. I am talking about something that looks diluted right from the get. I know of a family of buffs that are extremely thickly feathered. Heavy, heavy feather unlike what even today's best have been able to breed. There are of course the usual variations in tone on all those streamers but...the entire base color seems to be very much lighter than any normal buff. Could this be Pete's cream? I mean these birds are like that at the base of the shaft and fluff level and on feathers not subject to weathering. So could these birds be cream? The odd thing is that if they were a pastel or dilute factored buff you'd expect that to show up in the grays they are bred from and with at times. That isn't happening. Those grays are a perfectly normal medium shade of gray. I have no answers. As to how to breed to improve these colors my own answer is the same as for any color. Breed for a better bird. Breed for a better Sebastopol. Type makes the breed and color makes the variety. Keep track of and don't loose color but I think Pete would agree that with some understanding of color oriented genetics one can work with the breed characteristics and keep the color going even if not always showing. Nice when it shows up on a better bird than Grandma was.

 

[DaveK]

Here's a couple things we know about color but that still get us confused when seeing birds right in front of us. A single genetic color, like gray, can have many different expressions from a very light shade to a very dark, rich shade. This can vary from breed to breed and who knows why. Toulouse can be a light soft gray or a very dark charcoal colored gray. Gray in other breeds is often a lot narrower in it's range. It's kind of like buff Cocker Spaniels. The color is always the same gene so to speak but other factors affect the expression of the color and we have everything from silver to almost setter red depending on bloodlines. Same with the geese. Lighter lacing and a cast of foreign color may also be part of the picture but they are affecting a basic color. Then we have the known colors within the Sebastopol breed. Everything said about the variance in color expression applies not just to the grays but to everything that comes down from them. From gray comes blue, buff, lavender and powder blue. All of these are distinct colors with their own genetics attached to them. Some of them can hide or carry other colors. The point is that if someone wants to focus on any one or more of these colors if they do their homework and establish in their mind just how the color gets passed along they can do the matings that might give them a better bird even if the color goes underground for a generation. The breeder will know where it is and can have planned on how to have the desired color make it's reappearance, hopefully on a better bird than they started with. That is our hope for any mating of any color. And white is a color as well LOL. By the way. Saddleback is a pattern and not a color. The color works the same way as a solid bird even though we are seeing it as part of a pattern.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Dave I appreciate all of the thoughts. Pastels is how I tend to group the lilac, lavender and Buff's. They are paler colors most often and thus fall into pastel for my eyes.

We have greys who as you mentioned show all shades of grey from light to dark and all in between. McGraw (DH gander) is darker than Lucy (DH) goose. McGraws daughters all have very dark grey feathers so far. Lucy had a mix of lighter and darker toned off spring.

Now McGraw was with Peaches (the currently labeled lilac) they produced many grey, some lilac and 1 daughter who so far appears had buff and half lilac (coloring matches her mother) her feathering is better than mom, but completely curly chested.

We are keeping a data base on who we pair, what colors (and variations) they produce. As well as if they should be paired again, or not based on the goslings quality we see as a whole. We track, trace and wing band everyone here so it is easier long term to look up a history on a bird.

We also have whites, a group of 9 to be exact currently. We have a smooth breasted girl from this year I am very happy with as she continues to develop, we kept her as well as two curly from this year.


Anyways, I too hope this conversation continues to be a positive one. It's always more fun to share ideas. Our son is a science major and plans to do some genetics tests next year for an on going science research project. Hoping it can help with the breeding plans down the road, or at the very least make for an informative and fun project for him.

With the whites it's all about type, breed for type, cull for type.

With colors I am inclined to breed towards color keeping type in mind. It does no good to breed a color and have ugly heads, or snake like necks ect. So I personally believe some attention to type need to always be present. I can say we have two buffs I like the coloring on and closely watching looking at them for over all type. The lilacs I am afraid have much more work ahead as I want to see much more feathering to carry the color.

I suspect quality grey will help with the buffs, possibly crossing the split off spring that is of quality to the lilacs and lavenders to improve feather, color and quality. We don't have blues here yet, so not going to add it to the mix since the three colors (buff, lilac and lavender) are enough to cause the brain to hurt.

 

[poultry09]

Hello, hope you all dont mind me butting in but I was wanting to know what you all think of this gander? does he look to be a "good" quality gander? Also is he a gray? I am just trying to post pictures from every angle possible so you can get a "good" look at him so I am sorry if I posted too many photos if so please let me konw and I will remove this post, hope you all dont mind.























Thanks
Poultry09

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Morning poultry, that's the point of this thread. Discussing colors, and quality, so please do stick around. He is a smooth breasted grey, and a lovely shade of grey too.

 

[poultry09]

Morning poultry, that's the point of this thread. Discussing colors, and quality, so please do stick around. He is a smooth breasted grey, and a lovely shade of grey too.

Good morning Celtic, I think that this will be a great thread for learning about how to select good breeding stock and a great reference to look back on once more people start to post and ask questions and answer questions. So do you think my grey gander is worth breeding, I have a currly grey goose and I think if I paired them they would do good but im not an expert so I will take some good pictures of her and post them here

Thanks
Poultry09

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Please do post pictures of her too. It could be the angle, but his head appears flat in the pictures you shared. You will want to breed away from that for a more rounded head. Here is McGraw, he is a DH gander and has a rounder head, but not as round as others. I like the picture below for showing head shapes. Notice the grey on the far right and her flat top head. From right to left, the bird in the back is Peaches.