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

[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]

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

Interesting! I'm always looking for natural and effective ways to prevent and treat ailments, and appreciate learning about remedies and approaches from different cultures.

My guess is that the beer yeast is the same as our "brewer's yeast", and (as you said), it's highly nutritious. Since it can be bitter, I use nutritional yeast for the supplemental niacin - and it's excellent on popcorn and can be used in other food. As an aside, do you do any fermenting?

Thanks very much for sharing!

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Interesting! I'm always looking for natural and effective ways to prevent and treat ailments, and appreciate learning about remedies and approaches from different cultures.

My guess is that the beer yeast is the same as our "brewer's yeast", and (as you said), it's highly nutritious. Since it can be bitter, I use nutritional yeast for the supplemental niacin - and it's excellent on popcorn and can be used in other food. As an aside, do you do any fermenting?

Thanks very much for sharing!

How much nutritional yeast do you give them? I feed mazuri which is supposed to have the right amount of niacin, but I dislike that it’s not organic.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

How much nutritional yeast do you give them? I feed mazuri which is supposed to have the right amount of niacin, but I dislike that it’s not organic.

I'm not scientific in my approach, simply sprinkling some on their food via a shaker jar. Goslings will (literally) run through their food when they're very young, so I know they're not eating all of it (and probably not absorbing it through their feet ). If you're more comfortable with precise measurements, I know there are posts on the topic on here.