Key Characteristics

They are easy to keep and handle and normally live for 15 to 25 years. They are often kept and mated as pairs and even year old birds will lay and raise youngsters themselves or alternatively they can be hatched in an incubator or broody with a good success rate.

History

• Little seems to have been written in the UK regarding the origin of this goose breed.
• However, several older writers mention these white/grey geese as the common farmyard geese before the introduction of Embdens in 1815. Both refer to white ganders and grey geese predominating at the time.
• Others writers suggest that for breeding good geese ‘use fine white ganders and grey, ash or part coloured geese’.
• Despite this documented evidence Pilgrim geese were not entered into the Poultry Clubs standard until 1999.

Appearance

• A very unusual breed of domestic geese as all ganders are pure white whilst all females are grey.
• They are a medium sized breed weighing about 15 lbs at maturity.

Uses

Birds will lay between 30 to 45 eggs per year between February and June. Birds can be kept for meat and their sexual dimorphism makes separation of males and females easy.

Did you know?

Pilgrim geese are unusual in the goose world as exhibiting sexual dimorphism – two distinct colour forms. As the sex of birds can be differentiated even by novices at day old (white males and grey females).