Toulouse Geese

[chrismahon]

I know next to nothing- well nothing really -about geese. I have read that the Toulouse came over from France in about 1850 and has been selectively bred here so that it is now about 50% larger than its French counterpart. I have also read that fertility levels and egg production is very poor, whereas the French counterpart is the opposite. Am I correct? If so is this a result of the current size or the breeding?

Got to wondering if it would be possible to now cross English and French to achieve the bigger bird with much higher egg production. Has anyone any thoughts on this?

 

[AlexArt]

I think people cross the emben and toulouse geese to get the size and extra eggs, I had about 20 of this particular cross and they were prolific layers in the spring and were a good size too, I always got a 95% hatch rate when incubating the eggs as well which was great.
Am not sure on the pure english toulouse x french variety though - I'm sure someone has done it, but from what I heard speaking to goose people the english variety is more exhibition type with the emphasis on extreme characteristics rather than specifically for egg production like most exhibition stock. I know with the prices of these geese being so high I doubt people eat them anymore - where as the french do plus the fois gras, so more a practical thing than purely something to look at! I'm sure if you did cross the 2 it would be similar to our embden cross and would with careful selection get you something bigger with better eggs! - I'm sure there must be someone on here that has them who could shed more light on it!!!

 

[chrismahon]

Thanks Alex. I'm thinking of a project when we get to France. I'm completely against the force feeding fois gras production though. But they are lovely and could make good guards.

 

[AlexArt]

I don't like the fois gras production either, but I don't mind naturally fattening geese on pasture. Mine were excellent guards - although the amount of poop was something to be desired and when in moult my yard looked like someone had murdered a duvet!!! Would be interesting to see what you get though when mixing the 2 strains after a few generations!?