do you still mist/sprinkle water on goose eggs in lockdown?

[ascent]

Hello friends,

We're heading to day 29 with our first batch of 13 Toulouse eggs.
Most of them were wiggling since day 25 and some may have externally pipped (or could be some stronger internal pips that broke the shell, no beaks seen yet)
Anyway, yesterday I made a safety hole of 2mm in the air cell of each, except one that had a smaller air cell and today we found his head is in the wrong end of egg (by the pip he made)
I do know it can take up to 48 hours from pip to zip, but things seem really slow.

Humidity is around 73% and I can only get it higher if I place wet mats or sponges inside the incubator.
We have an incubator like the one in the picture attached.

My questions are: Will it help or hurt if I still sprinkle/mist water over the eggs?
Adding 2ml of apple vinegar in the incubator water will help moisten the eggs shell?

 

[ascent]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/goose-incubation-hatching-guide-completed.491013/

Yep. A very good guide with lots of useful advice, along with the one for assisted hatching.
All of the 13 goslings made it rather easily. The one that was mispositioned came last. I removed a few pieces of the egg shell around his external pip but stopped when I saw veins still active.
In the end, he broke free on his own when he was ready.
I guess he just had his head in the small end of the egg.
For anyone's consideration, I did add a small amount of apple vinegar in the incubator water (here, it's said it helps moisten the egg shell, don't know if it really had helped ) and kept the humidity around 75%.
Cheers!

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

With my goose eggs I didn’t mist any of the batches in lockdown and hatched just fine with 65% - 70% humidity.

I have never heard of using apple vinegar to moisten the eggs.

Good luck with your hatch

 

[ascent]

Ok, so the most impatient one hatched after 36 hours since the first pip. The zip was done rather quickly in less than an hour. Hopefully the rest will follow, now that they can hear him.

 

[Miss Lydia]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/goose-incubation-hatching-guide-completed.491013/

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Yep. A very good guide with lots of useful advice, along with the one for assisted hatching.
All of the 13 goslings made it rather easily. The one that was mispositioned came last. I removed a few pieces of the egg shell around his external pip but stopped when I saw veins still active.
In the end, he broke free on his own when he was ready.
I guess he just had his head in the small end of the egg.
For anyone's consideration, I did add a small amount of apple vinegar in the incubator water (here, it's said it helps moisten the egg shell, don't know if it really had helped ) and kept the humidity around 75%.
Cheers!

All 13 hatched?! That’s wonderfu! Humongous pat on the back to you and also whoever raised the healthy parents that created your healthy eggs!

 

[ascent]

I haven't heard about doing that, but I did find a thread where there was discussion of feeding chickens black pepper, seemingly for holistic health reasons.

Can you provide more info about the background of this practice in your area?

I'm from Romania and here there aren't that many geese breeders to exchange experience with, that's why I'm asking here as I'm not that experimented either
But I can tell you some approaches we use on baby chicks, and we'll try to use on goslings too:

- Primary food in the first days is grated boiled eggs mixed with grinded dried corn (something we use in our country for making polenta) and lots of greenery.
- Another food source especially to ducks and geese we use in the early stage is boiled nettle, chopped and mixed with boiled eggs. The water resulted from the boiling of the nettle can also be used to their feed.
- I don't know if you use this there, but here we use beer yeast for all the good vitamins, amino, minerals etc. it has. It's also a good source of vitamin B3 (niacin) which I read is vital for the goslings. Ratio on <14 days chicks would be 1 kg of yeast per 40 kg of food.
- At early stage we dip their legs in medicinal alcohol, it's said it strengthens their legs.
- We give them a peppercorn (moisten with butter) as a natural antibiotic. We tried this today with the goslings, but they spit it out. We'll try the grinded one to mix in their food.
- We don't throw out any eggshells. All are dried, grinded and put in their food (for calcium)
- Mint tea in case of diarrhea.
- Poppy seeds for diarrhea prevention also, but being so small is better to mix them with other food for the goslings.
- People here also use Methylene blue in their chicks water especially at early stages (1 ml or more per 1 l of water) can't really say what positive effect it has other than coloring the water blue

That's all I can think of now.
I do give them in the first two weeks some vitamin complex soluble in water, but other than that I try to don't give them antibiotics because they become sensitive (here we have a saying: How you raise them is how you get them).

Feel free to ask for questions, cheers!

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Well at the start ot the incubation, there were 17 but 1 was too fresh, did not develop and 3 quit along the way so in day 25 we went with 13 in lockdown, so it's still room for improvement.
Yesterday was nice and warm outside so they got some vitamin D

From everything I have read, I have concluded that it is common and quite typical to have the following percentages with geese:
Infertile 30%
Early quitters 20% after infertile removed
Dead in shell 10% after infertile and early quitters removed

Your numbers appear to be approx:
Infertile 5% (Strong, healthy parents, right?)
Early quitters 20%
Dead in shell 0%

So I am correct in this… you did an amazing job!
9 babies would have been expected.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

Congratulations on your hatch!

I also do not mist and cool during lockdown, primarily because I take the eggs out of the incubator to cool - I try to avoid handling them as much as possible during lockdown so they can (hopefully) get into proper hatching position.

Thanks for sharing the info. about adding ACV! Since ACV is acidic, it could theoretically help make the shell easier for the gosling to break through by basically dissolving it a bit. Goose eggshells are mind-bogglingly tough - I may have to experiment with the ACV.

 

[ascent]

All 13 hatched?! That’s wonderfu! Humongous pat on the back to you and also whoever raised the healthy parents that created your healthy eggs!

Well at the start ot the incubation, there were 17 but 1 was too fresh, did not develop and 3 quit along the way so in day 25 we went with 13 in lockdown, so it's still room for improvement.
Yesterday was nice and warm outside so they got some vitamin D