Hello!! I posted in the Sebastopol Breeding thread too but I have 2 pair of white Sebastopol's! My geese are last year(2013) March-April hatch and my ganders are June-July hatch! My girls are on their second laying period, they layed for the month of December when they were about 8-9 months old and the boys were 5 or 6 months old and there were no fertile eggs! I thought it was probably because they weren't mature yet and didn't know what they were doing! But at least one of my girls have been laying for 3 weeks now and there have been no fertile eggs! I just put 2 in so I don't know about those yet but I mean after 6+ eggs that have not been fertile I'm concerned! The boys are 9-10 months old now and I know they are male!!! I vent sexed because I had that sexing problem already! I bought my two boys who were supposed to be vet vent sexed females and after a bit I checked myself and they were 100% not female! Bought them because I thought I had two boys, but they both turned out to be girls! So I had that sexing problem but it turned out to be perfect and fixed my problem quite quickly!
What are some reasons why they aren't fertile? Should I cut vent feathers? I had that problem with my Jersey Giant chickens because my girl had such a fluffy butt! once I cut vent feathers fertility is 100%! I read that some people do and that some recommend doing it, but I also read that it doesn't matter and lots of people don't!
Like I said before I know for sure I have two males and two females! Any info or knowledge from experience or papers will be greatly appreciated! I looked in December but couldn't find much more then vent fluff cutting and maturity! but even then I questioned myself because I know males usually mature faster than females! Ugghhh soo frustrating! lol!
Plus I have a Chinese goose and gander with them, I'm not to worried about my Chinese gander doing the job..... he rather be with humans and stands on them sideways... but my Chinese goose has been laying and I'm pretty sure they can cross breed (Please correct me if I'm wrong) but even her eggs aren't fertile and she is 'easier' to get at then my Fluff Ball seebee's! So nothing's happening in the fertilization department right now for any of my geese!!
Thanks for reading and thank you in advance for your words of wisdom and help! I always get many wonderful and helpful info from BYC members and it's so nice to be able to turn to other breeders and enthusiasts who have experience and knowledge and who love their birds/babies as much as me! And it helps because I'm a 17 year old breeder, have been doing this since I could walk and have learned things most people never will, but now that I'm getting into fancier and many diff breeds this site helps a lot!
Do you have any pics of them you could post?