Are the eggs dead?

[Goose girl1]

Hi everyone,
Last night one of my geese got eaten by a fox but she was sitting on a clutch of eggs. I wasn't sure if she had just wondered of for a while but when I went to check tonight she still wasn't back. I've put the eggs in to the incubator... She was off them for about 24 hours. Will they be ok?
Thank you.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It depends. What day of incubation were they on?

 

[HuffleClaw]

So sorry about you goose I’ll be praying that the eggs will make it

 

[Ridgerunner]

There is only one way to find out, incubate them a while and see what happens. I don't know what stage they are at but after they have stabilized a day or so you can try candling to see what you can see, but I'd be more patient than that before I tossed them. There are plenty of examples on here of broodies being off the eggs for extended periods of time or incubators cooling down and eggs still hatch. I had a broody hen off the nest for probably 8 hours and she still hatched 11 out of 11 eggs.

Different things factor in. The later the stage of development the more heat the embryo's themselves generate. Where they are located can make a difference, the ground can stabilize temperatures but also draw it away. Hopefully the nest was well insulated from the ground. Weather plays a part. I took a quick look at Canberra weather, cool but at least its not raining.

Some of those embryos can be surprisingly tough. It's not a good situation obviously, but don't give up yet. I'd candle them after a day and then wait a week before I candled again. See if you are getting any development. I don't always see movement so go by development more than movement.

Good luck!

 

[HarleyQuailison]

They may be ok, as long as you got them in the incubator, and they didn't get too cold. I would look for late hatch though, so don't give up too quick. I'm sorry about your Goose, I'll be praying for her offspring. Are you sure it was a fox? I hear this kind of news from all sorts of people raising all sorts of birds. Is the bottom of the cage wired too or just open? I worried about that with my quail, so I nailed a siding board to the bottom of their Quail Mansion and put a nice piece of fake 1" grass roll in there and then got real grass, hay, weed bushes, etc. to make their environment more real and I change it out and bring new all the time, except the ones they use to hide behind. They love it and there is an unlimited supply of weeds around here. I worried so much about predators that I ended up keeping them inside lol

 

[Goose girl1]

Thank you,
Im not sure how old they are but we have another goose sitting on eggs and hers are about to hatch and the two geese where about 4 or 5 days apart....

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The first week of incubation, they can endure dramatic cool downs. Again, one can't know till they try.

 

[Chick-N-Fun]

Good luck with your hatch!
Candle the eggs in a couple of days and keep us posted on their progress!

 

[Shamo Hybrid]

............ as a doornail.