Traits: Eye-colors

Cedar-of-Lebanon showing brown eyes

I had originally decided on four types of eye-colors: Sassafras, Cherry, Ash, and Wide Eyes. This proved incredibly complicated because the Sassafras and Cherry eye-colors proved to be very similar except for one gander with the Cherry eye-color. But that was one goose. I decided to merge Sassafras and Cherry and simply go with Brown. Sassafras was named after one of my geese who passed this eye-color on to three of her offspring. I used Cherry because this color I considered to have a reddish look to it. I kept Ash and Wide Eyes although they may prove to be complicated sometimes as well.

White Ash showing her ash eyes

Ash was named after one of my original geese. Ash is also a tree which has light bark. Ash is the lightest eye-color so this works pretty well. The best way to determine whether the goose has brown or ash eyes is to look at them when the sun is shining on their eyes. Wide eyes make the geese look like they have completely black eyes. This one is confusing because they do have pupils so deciding whether they have it has to be one's own decision. One of my ganders who I had considered to simply have brown eyes really looks like he has wide eyes at times. 

I believe the Ash eye-color is from the smaller goose - the Chinese goose. Perhaps their wild ancestor the Swan goose also had eye-color differences and this was passed along to the Chinese and then on to the African goose. Whatever the case it is certainly present among my geese. I hope to retain a goose or two with the Ash eye-color because it is such a unique and fascinating color. 

I will continue studying the eye-colors to see if I need to establish new color types but for now three is quite alright.