Goose lays 7 eggs at a time

[CatGirl99]

I have three African geese, two females and one male. One of my females tends to lay 7 eggs in one sitting. Is this normal?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Welcome to BYC!
Can you offer a little better explanation of what you mean by "one sitting"? If you mean that she accumulates 7 eggs in a clutch before going to set yes, that would be in the realm of normal. If you are saying she is producing multiple eggs at one time/in one day, no.

 

[CatGirl99]

She will lay about seven eggs in the matter of a few hours.

 

[Carrosaur]

Do you have proof of this? Your other female may also be laying in the same nest.

 

[JimArcher]

That is physically impossible. I think you may have discovered a nest where the eggs were covered up and you found it when she was laying the 7th egg. Your goose would have died if she had tried to lay 7 eggs in one sitting. Her body just could not produce the calcium etc needed; not to mention the fact that there would be no room in her body/oviduct for such production.
My Brown Chinese goose is sitting on 10 eggs. They were produced over a matter of weeks, not a day. I doubt they will all hatch as some were quite old before she began to incubate. The normal gap between eggs is about 36 hours.

 

[IzziesChickies]

This goose has layed this many eggs before. She will spend an entire day on a nest. And when she gets up there are around 3-7 eggs there when there were none before. It's crazy, and no the other female couldn't have layed in the nest as they were separated when it's happened. How do I know, because I've seen it. I was there the day she layed seven eggs, and I got to take them home and hatch them.

 

[Carrosaur]

It's just not possible, sorry. Get proof next time.

 

[JimArcher]

This story is just not possible. It takes a goose about 36 hours to process a yolk - put the membranes on, the white/albumen, and finally the eggshell. There is no way on god's green earth that a goose could process 7 eggs and lay them within a matter of hours. Just impossible. A goose lays her egg and the covers it with grass and leaves. If you look in the nest area you will see no eggs. They are hidden. Either that happened or someone else is playing a joke on you. I hope nobody else in this site believes that it is possible for a goose to do what you are saying.

 

[shortgrass]

I agree; geese and ducks are notorious "buryers", that is, they " bury" their eggs in grass and mud to deter predators from finding the nest and to keep temps stable until its time to set...

And sometimes, the owners lol; numerous occasions of me finding a pile of nice muddy eggs in the garden that I didn't notice until they had scuffled then up, especially the mallards; they hide them

 

[JimArcher]

My goose brought off her brood today. Great excitement from her mate and he has turned very aggressive. She has 6 goslings out of ten eggs. 7 actually hatched, but it looks like one was crushed just after pushing its way out of the shell. It was partly in the shell - legs and back end, but was still very wet. Too bad. The 6 are little beauties and very healthy. Momma brought them out so she could eat some pellets and drink, but she took them back to the nest very quickly as it had started to rain. The goslings were already trying to eat grass.
Nice to watch the natural process rather than hatch them in an incubator. I have used an incubator - homemade - for chickens, Guinea hens, and ducks, but never geese.
My Guinea hen laid today. Very cold now in Laos and lots of rain so is creating problems - 2 newly hatched broods of Red Jungle Fowl, 12 chicks (Fayoumi X Thai Game hen(like Indian Game), 9 young Ducks, 6 Vietnamese Yellow chicks I bought from a vendor, 2 Silky cross chicks - very black, 5 Fayoumi X Gold Sex Link chicks, and 1 bantam X Fayoumi chick. Also 3 adult Red Jungle Fowl, 1 local silver duckwing hen, 1 tiny wild-coloured hen on 7 eggs with the nice Jungle Fowl rooster, 1Silver Duckwing part bantam hen, 1 Fayoumi Rooster, 2Gold sexlink hens, 1Thai Game hen. Lots of work.