Help with goose egg incubation

[Pilgrim-Goose Mom]

Hello, I’m relatively new to being a goose owner and this is my first breeding season. I attempted to incubate some of my pilgrims eggs with no success and mama goose was on nest of 11( eggs checked a little over a week ago and all viable) but recheck eggs tonight and only 6 left in nest and most dead. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Jenbirdee]

Hello, I’m relatively new to being a goose owner and this is my first breeding season. I attempted to incubate some of my pilgrims eggs with no success and mama goose was on nest of 11( eggs checked a little over a week ago and all viable) but recheck eggs tonight and only 6 left in nest and most dead. What am I doing wrong?

how old is she? if she's under 18 months old it may not be a good idea to let her hatch any anyway.
this was the first year i let my (almost 4 year old) pilgrim goose hatch her eggs, and still, only one hatched out of five.... I read Pilgrims hatch rate is 50% but we are batting 20% here. I think it could be that my 2 geese are brother and sister, and I have no way of finding out if their mom and dad might also have been a brother and sister.. too much inbreeding like that and problems happen. the one that hatched here has a turned under foot and couldnt walk but Im caring for him and he's getting better.
perhaps your birds may have some of the same circumstances as mine?

 

[Pilgrim-Goose Mom]

They are 13-14 months old and definitely not related

 

[Berd Man]

Could be some other factors. Sometimes they don’t set long enough or let eggs cool enough. Has she come off nest alot, does she leave for too long? Sometimes they pick a poor nest location, although yours looks fine and dry.

Some of mine would get into other nests and squash eggs by accident trying to donate to a broody female…the only way that I know of to get high hatch rates is to manually incubate them in waves. For that I suggest Pete’s thread that’s stickied in the Goose forum.

Some years they just don’t do well. I had a buff goose this year that had a nest of 14 eggs and hatched two.