West of England Goose

About the West of England Goose

The defining auto-sex saddleback plumage lets keepers tell the sexes apart from hatch: ganders are essentially pure white (with the odd stray grey feather) while geese carry a grey-and-white saddleback pattern, grey over the head and neck with white spotting through the flights, neck and breast. Goslings are sexable on down and bill colour, females showing grey patches on the beak versus the male's plain pale orange. A medium British farmyard goose standardised only in 1999, it is hardy, a good grazer and a reliable dual-purpose bird, now on the RBST watchlist.