ganderling

plural ganderlings

1. rareA young gander (male goose).

   Joseph Stelmach, still another Daytonian, is represented by two lithographs, Korean in inspiration: “Child With Basket” and “Ganderlings.”

   1959 August 16, Frederick Yeiser, “In Art Circles: Abstractionism—Is It Trash?”, in The Cincinnati Enquirer, 119th year, number 129, Cincinnati, Oh., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 6-D, column 8

   5 more examples

   Can any of our readers give this correspondent the name applied to a young gander? Some one has suggested that, since a young goose is a gosling (goose-ling) a young gander should be a ganderling.

   [1911, The Canadian Teacher, volume XVI, Toronto, Ont.: Educational Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 733, column 2

   Last spring Si found a goose egg twice as big as the regulation goose egg and he put it under the Mrs. Goose when she was ready to set. The result was just as Si had expected, for when the month was up and Si raised up one section of Mrs. Goose to take a peep underneath her he saw two of the finest ganderlings that he had ever had the pleasure of setting before his eyes.

   1921 October 28, O. U. Squash [pseudonym], editor, “Pumpkin Hill News: Si Is No Goose”, in Washington Citizen, volume XVII, number 19, Washington, Mo., →OCLC, page 8, column 4

   From all the various and fanciful stories we’ve heard over the years on sexing ducklings and goslings, the only certain information we’ve obtained is that Pilgrim geese can be color-sexed from the day they hatch. In this breed, the down of the ganderling is yellow while the young female is greyish.

   1978, Rick Luttmann, Gail Luttmann, “Sexing”, in Ducks & Geese in Your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide, Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Press, →ISBN, chapter 11 (Bringing Up Ducklings and Goslings), page 193

   What's got me bothered is that I have the opposite situation -- 3 hatched and survived (well, this long, going on 2 months for the oldest), but I've got one goose and 2 ganderlings.

   2011 July 5, Denninmi, “How many female geese should you have per gander?”, in BackYard Chickens, archived from the original on 04 Jun 2025, post #4

   gosling: Generically, the young of geese, up to one year of age. If it is necessary to distinguish gender at this stage, I suppose you could use “ganderling” for the male and “gosling” for the female, though such usage is not supported by any dictionary I know of.

   [2011 October 7, Harvey Ussery, “Glossary”, in The Small-Scale Poultry Flock: An All-Natural Approach to Raising Chickens and Other Fowl for Home and Market Growers, White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green Publishing, →ISBN, page 367, column 1