Crops & Breeds › Geese

🪿 Toulouse

Geese · breed reference

TWO DIFFERENT ANIMALS UNDER ONE NAME, which is why this is the only goose here that carries a strain row (the Rouen's Production-vs-Exhibition split on the duck page, at greater cost). Buying the Dewlap when you wanted the Production one is the commonest goose mistake in the US: the exhibition bird is a third heavier, lays half as much, starts years later, and needs deep bedding and a shallow pond it can walk out of. Two paunch lobes to the Pomeranian's one.

Strains

• Production · ~40 eggs/yr · lays ~44 wks · table ~16 wks — The grey farm goose American hatcheries actually ship. 16–18 lb, lays well for a heavy breed, grazes, and raises goslings.
• Dewlap · ~20 eggs/yr · lays ~96 wks · table ~20 wks — The French exhibition and foie gras bird. 20–26 lb, a keel that drags the ground, a great fold under the chin — and often no eggs at all until its third year.