Silver Geese?

[pete55]

Hi. Wish I cud see them in person as they look loudly geese. I wud imagine the Grey to be like that of Toulouse. Cream is a colour mutation that combines homoyygous Blue (Lavander) with Buff. Thats my understanding of it

 

[AuroraSprings]

Anyone have photos of Cream geese?

 

[AquaEyes]

Delete -- Duplicate

 

[AquaEyes]

Olive Hill pointed me to this thread -- so I'm sorry for responding to something from a few months back.

From my understanding of it, the Blue and Buff genes in geese are analogous to the Blue and Chocolate (respectively) genes in Muscovy ducks.

In both, Blue is an incompletely dominant gene -- one copy gives Blue, two copies gives something else (called "Lavender" in geese, called "Silver" in Muscovies -- and called "Splash" in chickens -- but all the same genetically).

A confusing aspect is that Muscovies also have a recessive form of blue called either "Self-Blue" or "Lavender." This works the same as the color by the same name in chickens, but since (to my knowledge) there isn't a recessive blue in domestic geese, we'll ignore it. But just be aware that when you see "Lavender Muscovy" it is NOT based on the same gene as that which makes a "Lavender goose." Yep, things would be easier if mutations were named according to genetics standards rather than appearance, but that's another story.....

Buff in geese -- and Chocolate in Muscovies -- is a sex-linked recessive gene. This means the gene is on the Z chromosome. Males have two Zs, females have one. Thus females need only one copy of this gene to show the color, while males need two. Yes, Chocolate Muscovies are much darker than Buff geese, but look at it this way -- both are sex-linked recessive "brownish" dilutions. It's just that Muscovies start from being Black while geese start from being Gray. So naturally, the "brownish" dilution of Gray will be lighter than the "brownish" dilution of Black.

In Muscovies, breeders have combined the Blue and Chocolate genes. Birds that are genetically Blue-Chocolate are called "Blue-Fawns", while birds that are genetically Silver-Chocolate are called "Lilacs" or "Creams" (the former according to Dave Holderread, the latter according to some other websites). To go back for a moment to the recessive blue in Muscovies called Lavender, those that are genetically Lavender-Chocolate are called "Pastel." Be aware that, again, this is NOT based on the same Blue gene as is found in geese.

I've found some great pictures and resources on the web, but some contain errors. I've sorted them out based on books I have by Dave Holderread, so I'm posting the pictures and correcting the captions here rather than sending you to a website where things might not be labelled correctly. The images are from Muscovy Duck Central. I'm using the Muscovies as a guide to show you how the genes work in them, so you can understand what's going on with your geese.

Black (basically wild-type, analogous to normal Gray in geese)


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Blue (one copy of the incompletely-dominant Blue gene, analogous to Blue in geese)



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Silver (two copies of the incompletely-dominant Blue gene, analogous to Lavender in geese)



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Group shot.
Top right is Chocolate (analogous to sex-linked Buff in geese)

Bottom right is recessive Lavender (no known analogy in geese, so ignore for now)

Top left is Blue-Fawn, a combination of one incompletely dominant Blue gene with Chocolate (genetically, this is Blue-Chocolate, but they decided to call it something different. This would be analogous to Blue-Buff in geese)

Bottom left is Lilac (aka Cream), a combination of two incompletely dominant Blue genes with Chocolate (genetically, this is Silver-Chocolate, but they decided to call it something different. This would be analogous to Lavender-Buff in geese)

 

[AquaEyes]

Anyone know genetics well enough to set me up a test breeding scenario to determine if they are lav or buff?

The simplest way is to take your "questionable" male and breed him to a normal female (by "normal" I mean regular gray color and pattern -- not Blue, not Buff, not Pomeranian, but just standard Toulouse color). Below are the ONLY outcomes based on whether the male is Buff, Blue, Lavender, or some combination of Blue-Buff or Lavender-Buff. Since females can't be split to Buff, and would show Blue if they had one Blue gene, you won't have to worry about any of the offspring getting either of these genes from Mom if you start with a Normal Gray female.

Buff Male X Normal Female = all sons Normal color, and all daughters Buff (no Buff sons, no Normal daughters)

Blue Male X Normal Female = 50% Blue, 50% Normal (no sex differences -- you can get Blue sons, Blue daughters, Normal sons, and Normal daughters, and no Buff at all)

Lavender Male X Normal Female = 100% Blue (no sex differences, all offspring colored the same Blue, no Lavenders and no Buffs)

Blue-Buff Male X Normal Female = Blue and Normal sons, and Blue-Buff and Buff daughters (no Buff sons, no Blue-Buff sons, and no daughters without the Buff gene, no common color across sexes)

Lavender-Buff Male X Normal Female = Blue sons and Blue-Buff daughters (no Normals)


Try the breeding, and look at the offspring. The Buff gene will show only in daughters, so if your gander is Blue-Buff or Lavender-Buff, you'll see sons that are Blue. If he's just "regular" Buff, then you won't get ANY Blues, and all the sons will be Normal. And if none of the daughters are Buff, then your gander doesn't have the Buff gene at all.

Take note of the exclusions in parentheses, and narrow down the possibilities based on the offspring from each pairing I listed, then work back to determine what the Dad HAS to be in order to get what you got.

 

[AuroraSprings]

Okay, I'm going to completely throw you off and say we have two FEMALES that are questionable, not a male. Sorry. That would make it easier.

How does the buff color breed true then?

How do Buff mallard-dev. ducks breed true?

 

[AquaEyes]

Okay, I'm going to completely throw you off and say we have two FEMALES that are questionable, not a male. Sorry. That would make it easier.

How does the buff color breed true then?

How do Buff mallard-dev. ducks breed true?

I'm not sure I understand your questions, but I'll try.

If you want to know if a female is Buff (alone or in combination with Blue or Lavender), you can breed her to a male Buff. If she has sons that are Buff, then she must be Buff. If her sons are not Buff, then she is not Buff.

If she is Blue-Buff, then you will see two different colors in the offspring -- Buff and Blue-Buff. If all the offspring look the same, then she isn't Blue-Buff.

Here's the tricky part. If she's Lavender-Buff, and you breed her to a Buff male, all the offspring will be the same as well. HOWEVER, they will all be Blue-Buff, and in that case, none of the offspring would look like either parent (they'd be lighter than Dad and darker than Mom).

The Buff color breeds true because Buff X Buff = 100% Buff.

In Mallards, there are two different things someone could be talking about when he/she mentions "Buff." There is a gene called Buff, which is sex-linked recessive (just like Buff in geese) that changes black pigment to medium brown. A bird with regular Mallard pattern plus the Buff gene will simply have medium brown in place of black on the normal Mallard pattern. The Buff gene breeds true -- Buff X Buff = 100% Buff.

But then there's also a color-pattern combination called Buff (as seen in Orpingtons, Calls and Runners), which does include the Buff gene, but also includes several other genes (recessive Dusky, dominant Sooty, and incompletely dominant Blue) that result in more uniformly Buff-colored bird. The other genes affect the spread of black over the body, then the Blue and Buff genes dilute it.

Buff color-pattern may not breed true, depending on the description of the ideal "Buff" color. Some standards (in the UK) prefer a darker-colored Buff, which is caused by the duck having only one copy of the Blue gene. These Buffs (color-pattern) will not breed true -- Buff color-pattern X Buff color-pattern = 50% Buff color-pattern, 25% lighter Buff color-pattern, 25% brownish-Buff color-pattern. The reason you don't get all Buff color-pattern is the same reason Blue X Blue doesn't give all Blue -- the color results from birds with one copy of the gene, and when you breed two birds like this together, some offspring get two copies, some get no copies, and half get one copy.

Other standards (in the US) prefer the lighter colored Buff, and these birds have two copies of the Blue gene, thus they breed true.


As an aside, I can understand the confusion that comes up with regards to poultry genetics. People give a name to how a bird looks, irrespective of the genes that make it up. In other words, when you look at a Buff Orpington, there's nothing in the name that informs you as to what genes give the ducks that color pattern. I come from the cage-bird world. Most colors and patterns there are named after the genes or combinations of genes that make them up, and there is a standardization of gene names across species. In other words, a cockatiel showing Pied, Pearl, Cinnamon and Whiteface is called a "Cinnamon Pearl Pied Whiteface" rather than some unique name like "Cappuccino Swirl." And when a sex-linked brown dilution appears in another species, it is again called Cinnamon, and not some brand new unrelated name. This way, breeders can see patterns across species, and if someone knows how to make a Blue-Cinnamon budgie, they'll know it's the same thing in a Monk parakeet, and a Ring-necked parakeet, and a Parrotlet, and a Yellow Naped Amazon, etc. because the same genes that are inherited the same way are given the same names in all those species.

In poultry, the names are dictated by the SOP for the breed, and then it's up to the breeders to translate that into the genes that make it happen -- and many times, the same appearance is given totally different names when it is found in different breeds. Very confusing -- it's almost as if the system is designed to make it harder for people to understand how to get the right combination of genes to satisfy the SOP.

 

[aineheartsyou]

Here is my 2011 pair, blue goose and lavender ice gander



I will try and get a current pic of them

 

[Crazyhouse]

I don't think geese come in silver. Different lines are going to be slightly different colors.

I have two Blues from Holderread and the sun really fades their color and makes them look gray. If you turn the feathers up, what is underneath and protected from light is blue. Their offspring this year were really seriously blue, but their color changes as the feathers age and are exposed to a lot of sunlight.

This is silver in waterfowl. Is your goose this color? This duck was cocoa brown as a duckling.

Hi I am wondering what kind of duck that is in the pic? I was given two ducks that look just like this but don’t know what they are