I have a friend who has a hatchery and she handles all the ordering, hatching etc. right now she is even brooding them as we are in the middle of a farm move. By importing I mean out of province, I'm not sure if she has tried to import eggs from the States. Hatch rate seems to depend on egg...
My Pilgrim goose laid 6 eggs as soon as I gave her a nest box. She's been sitting on them reliably, so, even though she is very young and this is her first attempt at a clutch, we thought we would leave her on them and see what happens.
R.I.P. my lovely Ludo. Taken by a bear, defending his ladies.
He was my lovely Ludmilla, who turned out to be a Ludo. Friendly and oh so handsome with his glossy black feathers and glorious white wild top.
Everyone is in lockdown today, til the bear loses interest or someone with more fire...
Thank everyone for your help. Instead of 3 varieties out of 10 birds I got 4. I would not have picked white Chinese myself, and rehomed my brown Chinese, but these two are darling.
If white Chinese, at 6 weeks, look as if someone has pressed their thumb into the top of their beak and left two small parallel ridges, then that is what they are. So much easier to ID goslings than chicks :)
This one and it's brother/sister were all yellow as babies and all white as they get their new feathers. The buff geese are the biggest, then the pilgrims and tufted Romans and these guys. I did have brown Chinese and can't say these remind me of them. Any chance they could be non-tufted Romans...
We just arrived home yesterday with our new goslings. Happy to be in their new home are 3 tufted Romans, 4 Pilgrims, 3 brown Chinese, and 5 Buff geese. They're so cute!!!
Some pictures of my black and whites....
My Dominique
A black Andalusian
Light Brahma
I think this one is the Columbian Wyandotte
My white Crowned Polish
Feathered feet and no upright comb suggest light Brahma. Which I love.
I can't keep all the birds I got this year, but am really taken with the idea of a 'tuxedo' flock.
So far have a Domenique , light Brahma, Lakenvelder, Columbian Wyandotte, splash and black Andalusians, and a white...
It was a young bear that went through the neighbourhood feeding out of wild bird seed stations and chicken food. This is our first spring on the property and we are learning the hard way what the local bears do when they wake up. By the end of this week the chicken coops will be part of the dog...