Cotton Patch Geese

"Once common on farms in the southeastern United States, the Cotton Patch goose gets its name from the tasks it performed. These geese weeded cotton and corn fields up until the 1950s. Cotton Patches are remembered in the rural south for helping many farmers and their families survive the Great Depression by providing a regular source of meat, eggs, and grease.

The breed’s beginnings aren’t clear, but it is thought to have descended from European stock brought to the US during the colonial period. Cotton Patch geese have many qualities in common with other sex-linked European goose breeds including the Shetland, West of England, and Normandy, although these breeds are recent importations to North America and did not play a role in its development. The Cotton Patch goose is the remaining relic of a little-known American breed with parent stock that likely shares common ancestors with other sex-linked breeds." ~The Livestock Conservancy