2 days to go to hatch and goose broke egg.

[livininbrazil]

Thanks for the suggestions Ruru, I now have the goslings with me, they´re under a lamp. They´re fine now. The problems were when they were with the parents!.They had plenty of fed, lettuce, were on grass, etc.. but it´s just coming out of winter here, and sometimes it gets quite cold at night, so I think that neither goose was really looking after them at night. Can´t think of anything else.

I´m giving them lots of grass and lettuce and watercress, dandelions, etc, also chick starter feed which doesn´t appear to have any medication in it....waterfowl feed seems non-existent here .Last year the birds were fine with their youngsters. This year the mom stayed on the nest after the eggs were gone twice running, wanting to hatch out any old stone she could find and rake under her. I´ve now put some logs across the área. I put her in with the goslings in a pen on grass this afternoon to see if she´d accept them back. The goose has no problem with them. The older gosling remembers her, and mom´s quite willing to brood it, but the younger one that she hatched out last Friday doesn´t look to her, doesn´t respond,only responds to me and the older gosling and the gander, who adores all his babies, but of course that won´t keep it warm and dry...... and then it started to rain, so I ran out of time and had to bring the goslings back up to the house again so they didn´t get chilled. I´ll leave her to nest again. Meanwhile, goslings are doing fine.During the day when it´s warm (28ºc) they´re down in the grass run right near the other geese, happy. The gander is devoted and sits right near them. Other geese come and sit around, too, so they have plenty of goose company, I just have to keep the tiny one warm, so when it´s cold or rainy, and at night they´re indoors, seems to be working. I´ll keep a very close eye out when the next lot hatch, to see if the goose is any better. It´ll be a bit warmer, too.

 

[RURU]

Thanks for the suggestions Ruru, I now have the goslings with me, they´re under a lamp. They´re fine now. The problems were when they were with the parents!.They had plenty of fed, lettuce, were on grass, etc.. but it´s just coming out of winter here, and sometimes it gets quite cold at night, so I think that neither goose was really looking after them at night. Can´t think of anything else.

I´m giving them lots of grass and lettuce and watercress, dandelions, etc, also chick starter feed which doesn´t appear to have any medication in it....waterfowl feed seems non-existent here .Last year the birds were fine with their youngsters. This year the mom stayed on the nest after the eggs were gone twice running, wanting to hatch out any old stone she could find and rake under her. I´ve now put some logs across the área. I put her in with the goslings in a pen on grass this afternoon to see if she´d accept them back. The goose has no problem with them. The older gosling remembers her, and mom´s quite willing to brood it, but the younger one that she hatched out last Friday doesn´t look to her, doesn´t respond,only responds to me and the older gosling and the gander, who adores all his babies, but of course that won´t keep it warm and dry...... and then it started to rain, so I ran out of time and had to bring the goslings back up to the house again so they didn´t get chilled. I´ll leave her to nest again. Meanwhile, goslings are doing fine.During the day when it´s warm (28ºc) they´re down in the grass run right near the other geese, happy. The gander is devoted and sits right near them. Other geese come and sit around, too, so they have plenty of goose company, I just have to keep the tiny one warm, so when it´s cold or rainy, and at night they´re indoors, seems to be working. I´ll keep a very close eye out when the next lot hatch, to see if the goose is any better. It´ll be a bit warmer, too.

If you are feeding chick starter you will need to put either brewer's yeast powder for animals or niacin too keep the legs strong on your goslings!

 

[livininbrazil]

Yes, I´ve read that, I´ll try to get some, but I´ve not seen it in the supermarkets, I´ll have to go to a baker. I´m not overly concerned about it, as their main food is grass and lettuce, chick crumb is just a supplementary food for them. I have some marmite here that came over from England, that´s full of B vit!!!

 

[RURU]

NO DO NOT GET IT FROM A SUPERMARKET OR BAKER, it is not that kind of brewers yeast. YOU WANT THE ANIMAL ONE!!!!! The other yeast is active and you do not want to kill your goslings with the wrong brewer's yeast. GO TO YOUR FEED STORE. If you can not find that then get the niacin and put that in the water. It is on here somewhere about how much to put in the water.
Since I feed a waterfowl feed I do not have to put it in it is already in that feed....

 

[DoubletakeFarm]

Walmart sells brewer's yeast tablets for dogs. You can crush them up.

 

[chooks4life]

Hope all goes well for you with your goslings and geese, livininbrazil. I'm no expert at all, having rehomed my geese because they were not useful as livestock to me. Originally we hoped to breed them and eat the sub par ones, but their family ties proved too strong and prevented us from doing this peacefully. They never saw their family member be culled and we don't cull unless we can do it without the animal being afraid or aware of what's coming, but the geese progressively became more and more anxious and suspicious as some juveniles from each hatch kept vanishing... We don't want our animals to suffer whether physically or psychologically.

I have had hens who have also refused to tend one chick. Not a wise investment of time and energy it seems. They'd rather abandon it to die and quickly get back to starting another clutch.

I don't really have any advice with your geese except to perhaps try making a division between the geese who keep trying and failing to co-brood. The goslings sound like they're caught in the middle and coming out losers for it. The gander doesn't sound like the most instinctive father, either. My ganders proved to be decent fathers and would help guide the goslings to feed, etc, not just watch over them.

Maybe, if possible and when the time is right, you could make a shelter across the other side of the property and try to train one goose to sleep there at night, probably the under-goose. Maybe if you had a run around it you could get her a gander she might bond to, and the two could start a clutch of their own while leaving the already mated/dominant pair to focus on their duties.

I don't know. With chickens though, there are conflicts that can cost you chicks when you have two mothers trying to co-mother when they don't get along too well, or when the chicks are bonded to one more than the other, or also under the circumstance of having the hens abandon the nest when they see some chicks trying to forage or when your hens refuse to leave the nest.... The list goes on... Breeding is best done separately until you're pretty experienced in what works, and so are your animals. Takes practice for everyone, human and animal.

Best wishes.

 

[livininbrazil]

Ruru, thanks for the panic....I´ve not looked for it yet, stuck at home with no car. I´ll ask at the feed store, but I very much doubt they´ll have it...


Doubletake Farm, I used to use brewers yest for my dogs in England, and there´s a Walmart an hour away, so I´ll have a look at their products. Not very hopeful, but you never know. If it´s not something that sells fast, it´s very difficult to find.


Chooks4life, it´s extrememly difficult to find this type of goose (common goose, male whitish, female grey) available here, some people do have them, but won´t sell, as they´re few and far between, literally. So, if one of these goslings turns out to be male, I can put gooseberry together with it, as she´s not the natural mother. Be a shame, though, as the trio are auto-sexing, the other batty geese aren´t quite the same, though they look like a type of landrace (Iput eggs from the batties under both the auto-sexing geese, along with their own eggs, the two survivors are batty sisters´goslings) And I will fence off an area to get them to pair off, good idea. Another thing, I did buy 2 ganders a while back for the sake of the 3 sisters, which by the way, were my first geese,( I raised them from 3 days old,) although they weren´t the same type as I have already got here, but there was a lot of squabbling between the dominant male and the other males, who just kept picking fights with him, even though they lost, so I sold them on. I´ve kept a young gander from last year´s hatch, and there´s no squabbling, young gander respects dad, keeps his distance together with the 3 batty sisiters. I imagine the mutual respect is to do with family ties, so I´m hoping that if these 2 youngsters are males, that it´ll go more smoothly. The batty3 will nest again, next time I´ll try to separate them.
Tough story about your geese, that would upset me a lot too. They´re smart birds, aren´t they. And so loyal to their own. Happily, no-one here eats geese, they´re just to look pretty on the farms, or gardens. I´ve never seen them for sale to eat, even at Xmas.
With my chickens, when they´ve hatched out their little ones, I put them in a small run for a bit of protection, (we have carcará around here, type of hawk) maybe I should do the same with the geese in future, instead of letting them be free-range, at least until they´re a little older. (hawk goes no-where near the geese though! another smart bird!) Interesting what you said about the one chick. Makes sense, doesn´t it, that they´d pack it up and start over again.


Now, today I put the goose in a small run, 1m x1m, poor thing, together with both the goslings. I had to put her in a small run, because the weather´s not too reliable today, and I need them to be covered. It´s on grass, though, and mobile. So, the month-old gosling knows her because the gander kept taking it and its now dead siblings back to her nest, and the tiny gosling sticks close to the older one, so I was very pleased to see that after the initial efforts to escape said pen and get back to her empty nest, she was brooding the two of them. I´m hoping that she´ll be more inclined to look after them, being two, and that tiny gosling learns to relate to her, and isn´t neglected. She looks at it, defends it from me, it just needs to learn that she´s a source of warmth. I´ll keep a close eye. Going back down there now, thanks.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts on this.

 

[chooks4life]

Best wishes with your efforts. I suspect your geese may have come from recent ancestors that were artificially incubated. They sound like their instinct is patchwork, if you know what I mean. Shame about not being easily able to source more geese and potentially having to separate the under-goose, but hopefully you will have thriving clutches of goslings in future.

 

[livininbrazil]

Thanks for your interest, suggestions and help. Very few people here use artificial incubators,probably only those raising chickens on a big scale for the table, but hens are used a lot for incubating just about anything, don´t know if that would make a difference, but I do believe they´re from an old flock that was just left to its own devices, so probably they were raised naturally. Thing is, last year they raised their youngsters with no trouble. Well, the undergoose is laying again, and the goose that doesn´t want to leave her nest is now penned in right next to the goslings. The gander sticks really close. She was with them yesterday, was great with them, but at night she wouldn´t get the tiny one right into her feathers, so I brought them both up to the house again to keep them warm. It was a battle, she gets very protective, that´s why she can stay next to them instead of with them, it lets me keep a better eye on things. This morning I took them back down, but their calling wasn´t enough to get her off her old nest, so I put her back in the pen next to the goslings. I´ll do this for a while, it keeps her off the nest, too .( I blocked it off, but she gets as close as possible to it) I also managed to get some Brewers yeast in the pharmacy, the only place that has it, so I´ll give them a tiddly bit of that with their crumb. They´re doing great. When the undergoose starts sitting, I´ll fence her off so no-one can interfere with any hatchlings, and see how she goes. If one of these goslings is a male, I´ll try to get him paired off with her for next year.(not related, she adopted the eggs) The youngest gosling is such a character, and very strong, I wouldn´t be surprised if it´s a male.

 

[chooks4life]

Using chicken hens to incubate goose eggs can also impact on their mothering ability as it tampers with their instinct by not letting them complete the cycle naturally, but from what you've said this is not the issue. Hope all goes better in future. Best wishes.