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How do I evaluate gander and drake conformation?

 
Posts: 105
Location: Hartville, Wyoming
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I really need to cut back on my ganders and drakes, but I haven't really found anything that gives me the information I need to decide who stays and who goes.
Is there an easy and straightforward way to evaluate them generally, before doing individual breeds, or do I need to do everyone by breed? If so, how do I go about doing that? I'll include a list of all my breeds later. The breeder side of me doesn't believe in just butchering everybody when I want to breed them later, so I need to know how to move forward. I know how to evaluate roosters for generalized quality by checking pin bone width, head broadness, breast depth and width, etc. Is there something similar I can use for my drakes and ganders?
My goose to gander ratio is terrible (3 geese, 24 ganders) and I've been slowly picking off the more aggressive ganders, but I'm to the point where I actually need to evaluate conformation because I don't have any more apparent culls. I have White Chinese, Toulouse (the un-dewlapped version), and Embdens.
Duck wise, I have about 23 ducks, and about 20 drakes. I have Pekins, Buffs, Khaki Campbells, White Layers, Welsh Harlequins, and Magpies.
As an additional question, how many ducks can every drake cover? How many drakes do I need to keep to be effective?
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I'm going to say that I would make a list of what was important to me. Conformation is an exterior standard which does not necessarily correspond to what I need on my homestead. Do you need a horse to be able to run faster than every other horse, or be calm, reliable and "fast enough"?

I'm a strong believer in birds that don't hurt each other or me. I prefer birds that have been raised by real moms, even if I have to use a Muscovy Mom to do that raising (pretty funny when they raise geese, but it works!)

I'd just be happy if I could tell the geese from the ganders... since mine aren't pure bred, I've had minimal success.
 
Rusticator
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I don't have geese, but like Jay, I go with what suits me and our farm, with the chickens & ducks. I'm different with my goats because they're a developmental breed, and I'm working with others across the USA, to bring genetic conformation and high quality into the breed as we all work toward breed recognition. It's a very different thing, from my birds, and the sheep I'm getting, tomorrow - all of which will be staying here, for our personal needs.

Also Like Jay, I won't tolerate aggressive critters, so that's always first choice, for freezer camp - we'll call it my guaranteed scholarship program, lol. Beyond that, I look for the qualities I want to promote. For example, human-friendly ones and those mammals born or birds hatched from parentage I know to be good layers/birthers, the biggest, healthiest ones with the best survival instincts(predator awareness, foraging ability, broodiness, mothering, lactating, etc), and they stay put, while the rest go to join the jerks, at freezer camp. I'm going through the choosing between my ducks (all mutts), now. We are supposed to be getting another 6 for freezer camp, in a couple weeks, but I have 16 here now, of which I only plan on keeping 2 drakes and 4 or 5 hens. Three of the hens and one drake are decided. The rest will be separated, and are going to be chosen probably by which ones I like best, based on personality & look - because after all the other criteria, aesthetics and being able to tell which ones are which can make a difference for me, though I'm not sure I can really explain why.

The last layer of freezer candidates for me, quite honestly, usually becomes a matter of which ones are closest, when it's time.
 
Elena Sparks
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Location: Hartville, Wyoming
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I sort of want to keep a purebred line of the Magpies because they're a more rare breed, but I'm fine crossing the others to make a landrace (which is what I'm doing with my chickens). With that as my goal, do you think the same methods I can use for chickens would work on my ducks and geese? Laying ability is important to me, and you can sort of predict a rooster's laying genetics by how wide his pin-bones are (here's the link to the video I used as a base when I was first getting into chicken breeding years ago). Would this work for ducks?
 
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