2017 Gosling Hatch a long!!

[SunshineMary]

Oh my goodness, do you really think so? How exciting! We see our drakes breeding our ducks nonstop but never see the geese mating, so we thought the eggs were likely infertile. This is our first attempt at incubating eggs.

 

[8GeeseALaying]

Congrats your eggs are alive! Definitely been fertilized. Ganders are kind of quick and sneaky with breeding. If you have heard long screeching honks then that's been him making the connection. Drakes, unlike ganders, are just horny little perverts of the bird world. Do it anytime, anywhere. They are insatiable.

 

[SunshineMary]

Congrats your eggs are alive! Definitely been fertilized. Ganders are kind of quick and sneaky with breeding. If you have heard long screeching honks then that's been him making the connection. Drakes, unlike ganders, are just horny little perverts of the bird world. Do it anytime, anywhere. They are insatiable.

Now that you mention it, in the middle of the night almost every night lately, we've heard a sudden loud screeching honk from him. The first few times we thought a predator had gotten in to the run and ran out to check, but there was never anything there. It's odd that he chooses the middle of the night in the run instead of during the day out in the pond! Silly goose.

The proud parents-to-be:

 

[GeeGi]

Congrats your eggs are alive! Definitely been fertilized. Ganders are kind of quick and sneaky with breeding. If you have heard long screeching honks then that's been him making the connection. Drakes, unlike ganders, are just horny little perverts of the bird world. Do it anytime, anywhere. They are insatiable.

OMG you are not kidding! My mother called me one morning worried about the geese because she heard the noise. It woke me up also so I went outside. I told her they were mating and she wanted to argue since they were so noisy. I said "Mom, some animals are more vocal during mating, like some people." Yep, that shut her up! Bring up sex and she's over it! LOL

 

[GeeGi]

Now that you mention it, in the middle of the night almost every night lately, we've heard a sudden loud screeching honk from him. The first few times we thought a predator had gotten in to the run and ran out to check, but there was never anything there. It's odd that he chooses the middle of the night in the run instead of during the day out in the pond! Silly goose.

The proud parents-to-be:

Awww look at that face!! Those things have a huge house! I thought mine was big but it's small looking at this one. GEEZ!

 

[UgLeeDuck]

Pipped Zipped and Hatched. First gosling of the year with about 70 more eggs to go. Woo Hoo

 

[Miss Lydia]

Pipped Zipped and Hatched. First gosling of the year with about 70 more eggs to go. Woo Hoo

Congrats!!

 

[Pyxis]

No goose egg here today and the last one was laid on or before the 18th. Do they often take a break from laying that long? I haven't paid attention to how often they were laying in the past.

 

[buggymuffin]

I have a question for the group. This is our second year hatching. Last year we let our pilgrim goose hatch her own eggs. She sat on 4 (she was a late acquisition and it took us a little time to get her nest set up last year). All 4 hatched and and we sold them in the fall. This year, we were planning on letting them do the same thing since they were such good parents last year. She has been laying for a couple of weeks now and we have been gathering the eggs since it is still well below freezing. We were planning on giving them back once she had about a dozen. We are up to 9 now. Unfortunately our gander decided to take on something that was creeping around their pen the other night. He stuck his head through the fence and it grabbed hold. (We aren't sure if it was a dog, coyote, fox or bobcat, but any one is possible. He escaped, but tore up the edge of one wing pretty bad on the fence and suffered a couple puncture wounds on his head. We managed to stop the bleeding and he was walking around and drinking that day, so we were hopeful that he would pull through barring infection, but unfortunately he died last night. We put her in the duck pen for the day because she was so lonely looking for him. That seemed to help, but they are a bit skittish around each other (they have always spent time around each other separated by a fence) We are going to keep her in her own pen at night and let her hang out with the ducks for now.
We know she has another week or two of fertility and we want her to be able to hatch some of her eggs and raise the babies, but we also want to incubate a few of the eggs so that we can hand raise a few (hopefully including a male that we can keep to replace the gander) because we want them to be less skittish (and aggressive during breeding season). The plan would be to keep a pair of hand raised babies along with our current goose and sell the rest later in the summer. My question is, should we incubate at the same time she starts setting, so they are all the same age, or is it better if the incubated goslings are a little older (or younger) than the goslings she hatches when we introduce them to each others? We don't want her to be overprotective of her babies when we bring the others out to meet her and we can't keep them inside until they are all fully grown. Also, at what age would an introduction be best? We are planning on keeping the incubated brood inside until around 6-8 weeks depending on temperature.

Any feedback by someone who has experience incubating only part of their flock and reintroducing them would be appreciated.

 

[psue]

No goose egg here today and the last one was laid on or before the 18th. Do they often take a break from laying that long? I haven't paid attention to how often they were laying in the past.

Mine often take a break or two during season

Pipped Zipped and Hatched. First gosling of the year with about 70 more eggs to go. Woo Hoo

Congrats!!!

I have a question for the group. This is our second year hatching. Last year we let our pilgrim goose hatch her own eggs. She sat on 4 (she was a late acquisition and it took us a little time to get her nest set up last year). All 4 hatched and and we sold them in the fall. This year, we were planning on letting them do the same thing since they were such good parents last year. She has been laying for a couple of weeks now and we have been gathering the eggs since it is still well below freezing. We were planning on giving them back once she had about a dozen. We are up to 9 now. Unfortunately our gander decided to take on something that was creeping around their pen the other night. He stuck his head through the fence and it grabbed hold. (We aren't sure if it was a dog, coyote, fox or bobcat, but any one is possible. He escaped, but tore up the edge of one wing pretty bad on the fence and suffered a couple puncture wounds on his head. We managed to stop the bleeding and he was walking around and drinking that day, so we were hopeful that he would pull through barring infection, but unfortunately he died last night. We put her in the duck pen for the day because she was so lonely looking for him. That seemed to help, but they are a bit skittish around each other (they have always spent time around each other separated by a fence) We are going to keep her in her own pen at night and let her hang out with the ducks for now.
We know she has another week or two of fertility and we want her to be able to hatch some of her eggs and raise the babies, but we also want to incubate a few of the eggs so that we can hand raise a few (hopefully including a male that we can keep to replace the gander) because we want them to be less skittish (and aggressive during breeding season). The plan would be to keep a pair of hand raised babies along with our current goose and sell the rest later in the summer. My question is, should we incubate at the same time she starts setting, so they are all the same age, or is it better if the incubated goslings are a little older (or younger) than the goslings she hatches when we introduce them to each others? We don't want her to be overprotective of her babies when we bring the others out to meet her and we can't keep them inside until they are all fully grown. Also, at what age would an introduction be best? We are planning on keeping the incubated brood inside until around 6-8 weeks depending on temperature.

Any feedback by someone who has experience incubating only part of their flock and reintroducing them would be appreciated.

Personally I'd hatch them at the same time and give her the babies as soon as they have their feet under them OR bring all the babies in to brood and give them back to her when the temps are high enough to not worry about them.