Dirty Goose eggs

NevadaEmma

Songster
Mar 24, 2021
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My goose finally started laying eggs. Last year she said her first in January. She has three in the nest. When I went to check on her in yesterday her three eggs were covered in hay stuck on the egg yolk covering the eggs.
After a bit of searching I found some egg yolk near the other eggs but very little shell.

I thought possibly one of the chickens had laid an egg in her nest (that happened last year, so cute) and somehow it got crushed or the goose broke the egg somehow.

I have two questions:
First do geese egg their own broken eggs like chickens do?
Second, should I clean the eggs or leave them soiled?

I change the bedding in the goose house which is why I know there were very few shell pieces. No new eggs today.

Last she laid probably 40 eggs over a few months, but none hatched, she never sat one them. I put several in my chicken incubator and did hatch 4 successfully. She and her mate would have nothing to do with the chicks, but the "uncles" were very attentive.
 
It sounds to me like one of her own eggs may have broken in the nest and "yolked" the others. If she's been incubating them herself, she may have either accidentally broken one or gotten rid of a bad one.

If these were eggs you planned to set in an incubator, I'd suggest trying to clean them up a bit - I'm generally a proponent of leaving bloom intact, except for when there's very heavy soiling - but if she's sitting on them (or you hope to encourage her to), I would leave them be.

Best of luck!
 
Ys, I do not like to clean the bloom off either. She has not laid another egg in two days since this happened. I have an incubator full of chicken eggs at the moment otherwise I would clean them and put them in the incubator. I would like to see her hatch her eggs. I know her mate would like to have her hatch some goslings ( or at least that is what I think Leonard wants!). Looking forward to breeding season to come to a close. My poor Sebastopol looses all his long, beautiful feathers during this time. He is a small goose that thinks he is the biggest dog is the pack!
 
Hopefully she isn't egg bound. Goose eggs usually don't break. If you are not doing it already get a bag of crushed oyster shell and make it available to her. Better yet put a small handful into one side of their feed dish just to make sure.
There is a chance that anything that sits on the outside of the egg can leech into the egg. From personal experience, limited as it is, eggs with goo don't develop. I spot clean soiled eggs and occasionally will use warm egg cleaner on them. I have read as many reasons to clean the eggs as I have read not to clean.
How is the gal doing with her egg laying now???
 
I think the culprits were some Magpies that were breaking the eggs. The soiled eggs all broke and appear to have been consumed. She now has 5 new eggs. I have been placing a large wire egg basket (that was my grandfathers turkey egg basket) inverted over her eggs during the day.

I noticed that she was nibbling on the chicken egg shells that I have been putting in my compost pile, so I have started offering her some along with their mid-morning "treats" of cabbage, apples and cucumbers. She also has available to her the oyster shells that I have out for my chickens. I have never seen her eat those, but she may be.

Thanks for the reply.
 

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