Sebastopols. A cash crop?

[Jenifer Kraus]

Quote:
I understand that they look pretty naked now and so do mine. You can wait until later one. I have Great Pyrs and the geese actually pull the hair out of Moose my male. They grab and tug on his ears to and he lets them.

 

[adrian]

I have a question. Is it possible to see, as goslings, which will have rounder foreheads? I recall seeing pictures of call ducklings and being told that you could tell from birth which were up to standard, because of their short beaks and round heads.

 

[Hillside]

Quote:
With my Sebastopols I would say yes. Doesn't work for everything though. One thing I have seen is pictures of gosling heads with very narrow, shallow, wedge shaped heads. I can't see heads like that turning out big and wide and round but different lines in a breed can start out and mature differently too. My own Sebastopols come from a few different breeders but are all related. With them those wedge shaped heads would scare the goose poop out of me.

 

[adrian]

I'm probably getting some sebbie eggs soon -- here in Canada, they tend to breed quite late due to late springs -- so many thanks. Hopefully I'll be able to find some with decent foreheads. From my knowledge, these birds are from Holderread's line. They appear larger than other sebastopols I've seen, which I am not keen on, but what can you do? I just like a smaller, compact bird, with a thicker neck and larger head.

Also, on that note, does anyone have any special tricks they use to hatch sebastopol eggs successfully? Of course these would be very special eggs for me, and I want to get it right. I probably have higher success rates with geese than I have with any other fowl - usually 80-100% hatch rates with them. I have noticed that poor flock health is 95% of what causes deaths for me, and those deaths occur early on. Any tips and tricks would be much appreciated.

 

[smoothmule]

I have 3 that I bought from someone local who bought several young goslings and had them shipped at a week or so old. They are the sweetest and come running from where ever they are when I call goose goose. They are my only geese. I have a few chickens, a pair of turkeys and some free range guineas. Mine are all pets but I like even my pets to look like what they're supposed to. They may not be perfect. Mine are young, they just now have their first feathering and they are looking pretty good and what I expected. I think the prices are what you should expect and not a cash crop. It's pretty expensive to keep fowl of any type. You have to have housing, equipment, feed, medication as needed and so on and it is continually replaced and upgraded. Most breeders probably barely break even so why should these people who are producing these geese go broke breeding and selling? I have 2 females and 1 male and I'd love to have another male just so they will be happy couples rather than an odd goose out. Since there are so many people here with Sebbies, if there are any single males looking for a female, I am wanting another male.

I was reading the posts this morning and thought I'd go out and snap a couple of my own to share. I was sitting on the ground (and yes I watched where I was sitting

They came running up to see what I was up to and I just set there snapping away. Most were blurred, they don't understand the command to stay,

They kept nibbling on grass but would occasionally honk at me and get close, then they decided to nibble on my sleeve and pulling at my clothes like they were grooming. They weren't pinching, it was more like nuzzling and one was nearly up in my lap. I reached over the male and gave him a light hug and he just snuggled closer. I was trying to get a good face picture, there were some comments here about the smooth feathered geese being suspect for not being real sebs so I thought I'd ask here if there are any other breeds that have blue eyes??? That might be a way for the smoothed variety to be identified as purebred.

Anyway, here are a couple pics of my Sebs that I just took. They aren't show quality but I just wanted them for my pond (they may be more expensive than some water fowl but they are much cheaper than swans are, lol, and more beautiful in my opinion) I would love to find a white male that is very curly breasted and a good head. Mine have fair heads and not exactly smooth breasted but they aren't all that curly. Will they get curlier as they mature? Mine are about 4 months old so I still think of them as babies.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I have had both Embdens and Romans in the past, and they were white, smooth feathered birds with blue eyes. Except the Romans having tufts on their heads, they looked nearly identical.

 

[Jenifer Kraus]

They are still babies and unless they are smooth breasted they should get curly and by fall they should be fully feathered. Your off to a good start with the head on the second picture and may continue to get rounder and larger with age.

 

[smoothmule]

Thanks for the blue eye information. I don't know a whole lot about different breeds of geese. I'm not real sure whether mine are smooth breasted or not. Here is a fairly decent photo of the front. Is this typical for a young bird that could be curly breasted?

 

[smoothmule]

Oh, and I wanted to ask about feathers too. One of mine has a single, long straight feather on the wing tip on each wing. I don't think it's angel wing but then I've never seen angel wing. The wing itself seems normal but that single, straight feather sticks out like a sore thumb with the others so soft. There were a couple more, at least I thought there was, but they have already come out and there are more feathers coming in on the wing tips so I'm really anxious to see if they come in soft or straight. As far as nutrition, I got these geese when they were still mostly in yellow/grey down and they had white down just coming in on their backs. I fed a regular poultry crumble since they were past chick starter age but they were on grass in a pen and by a couple more weeks they had made themselves at home and went to the barn to sleep at night and have remained free ranging.

I haven't lost anything here to predators since I've had poultry and were very rural and loads of predators in the area. My stock dog, Sam, routinely kills possums, raccoons and even skunks and deposits them on the front porch. He lets the birds eat with him in his bowl and has been an amazing guardian for the past 8 yrs. We have a huge chocolate lab that has joined in as guardian the past 2 yrs but he's not as effective a varmint killer as Sam is, I think he has too soft a mouth for killing those tough predators but he has a mighty tough bark. I'm already thinking about a young stock dog to raise with Sam to learn his ways. We had another stock dog before Sam that began the guardian routine here.


My geese have 2 good sized ponds here by the house, one in the back yard. They have plenty of grass and other than getting into the chicken feed occasionally, I'm not routinely feeding them anything else this summer. I may get some black oil sunflower seeds if that is good for them. Is there anything else I should be doing? wormers? anything?

 

[Jenifer Kraus]

This one looks to be a smooth breasted bird. Should have lots of curly on their back and thighs. There is a picture of one of my smooth breasted birds on this thread, not sure which page. To me they can be just as pretty as the curly breasted.