Anyone heard of Silver Laced, Black, or Feather legged Geese? I was thinking today how awesomely beautiful any of these would be. Does anyone know how the silver laced pattern could be developed in chickens? Beause that could probably be applied to geese. I've heard if you breed a White Chinese to a White Embden they always have a few black feathers. I then thought you could keep breeding until you had a totally black bird. Imagine it. A pure black goose with shiny beetle green and purple all over it. Like a Cayuga (duck) only really big!! it would be awesome!!!!!!!! Anyway, if anyone thinks that would work, or if anyone knows about the silver laced pattern I would greatly appreciate the information. also, do geese have stubs? Isn't that how cochins were developed? With more and more and bigger stubs? I would greatly appreciate help. Even if its a "I don't think it could happen because...". It's been a while since I've raised geese, so I've forgotten some of what I knew.

Birdface; I've raised geese for years and have never seen a truly black feather. I think the grey in geese is like blue in chickens, a black inhibitor. See, Ducks are derived from Mallards, Mallards have a wild counterpart that is black, The Black Duck. Most domestic geese were developed from the Gray Lag goose that has no known black sports. If you cross White chinese and Embdens you will likely get dark spots, but remember Embdens often are lightly spotted until they are mature. Most commercially bred Embdens are hybrids. Chinese blood was added to increase egg production. These geese are all white, so cross breeding is not likely to produce the desired results. You might be able to breed Red geese from Buffs though, I'm not sure. It is very unlikely that you will find geese with feather stubs on their lower legs. As waterfowl, they have evolved to be clean legged so as to not freeze in place. On the other hand someone had a curled feather mutation show up somewhere back down the line, Sebastapols, so who knows what might be developed in the future. Most oddities started out as mutations not purposeful creations. Like Tufted Romans. Brown Africans and Gray Tolouse might be bred to be darker and darker. Or, I'm not sure this is feasible, you could attempt to hybridize Geese and Black Swans. Artificial Insemination might have to be utilized, maybe not. Lonely birds might do the job by them selves. Lions and Tigers have cross bred in captivity. Geese and Swans might too. If you crossed Black Swans and White Embdens, you might not have to deal with the grays black inhibitor gene. Someone might know the chromosome count for geese and swans. If they are the same, offspring snould be fertile. If not exactly the same, One gene might be sexlinked and a cross one way might produce one sex that is fertile, a cross the other way might produce the opposite. In cattle, 1/2 Bison 1/2 domestic cattle bulls are infertile, cows are fertile. 3/4 Bison 1/4 Domestic cattle produces fertile bulls. 3/4 domestic cattle 1/4 Bison produces fertile cows but infertile bulls. Good luck, which ever way you choose. Randy Henry (JaRaCo)

Interesting!! That helps a lot. What is the "gray black inhibitor gene"?

Birdface; I was refering to the black inhibitor gene that probably is responsible for the color gray. It would be the equivalent to the black inhibitor gene that causes barring in Rocks and Laced Blue in Andalusians. So when I said "The grays black inhibitor gene" I was talking about the gene which might belong to the gray colored geese. If that gene exists in geese, that might be why they are gray and not black.