I started out with 12 Emden goose eggs, 4 in each group, one week apart.
First group had one that pipped internally and I helped him out of the shell. See post of croocked neck gosling.
Had to put him down today. The other 3 developed almost all the way, but never pipped.
In the second group, one failed to develop early and I removed it. The other three made it into the hatcher.
So today I cleaned out the hatcher, it had the 3 goose eggs in it.
1 appeared to have died 2 weeks or so ago, based on the lack of development and brown liquid.
The other 2 failed to pip internally, and died. This time instead of just tossing the eggs, I broke them open and really looked at what was inside. Did like an autopsy on them. Guess if you don't know what went wrong, or when, kind of difficult to correct.
So the 2 looked like they had developed completely, they had the feathers or fuzz stuff on them, and the yolk sac had not been absorbed. There was very little if any liquid inside the sack when I broke it. Both of them looked nearly identical, so the same thing got both.
I had them in a still air incubator, turned minimum of 3 times a day by hand. Temp was set at 100.5f at the level of the egg. I ran with atmospheric humidity, which was usually about 45-55%. Once a day I would open the incubator for 15 minutes and allow the eggs to cool, then I would turn them, mist them and close the incubator back up. I washed my hands each time before I turned the eggs, but maybe I wasn't as careful with the water bottle I misted them with. I live in the country, so no chlorine in water, but it is pretty hard. Would distilled water make any difference? Only do this once a year it seems, and a gallon or so of distilled water would be a really cheap remedy. Almost funny to think about.
On the good side, I also moved the final 4 eggs into the hatcher. The Hatcher is about 98 degrees and I'm trying to keep the humidity up about 65% or so. With these I'm going to candle ever day and try to keep track of the air pocket and any changes in it. Maybe I'll catch something along the way that will make a difference.
Any thought or ideas or comments would be appreciated. This will conclude my goose season for this year. I collected 12 eggs, and let her set on the rest. She sits on them religiously, and gets off once a day to go wash and eat and relive herself. There were 10 eggs in the nest when she got off this morning. So maybe she will have better luck than I did. This is also my first attempt to let the goose sit on her own eggs.
First group had one that pipped internally and I helped him out of the shell. See post of croocked neck gosling.
Had to put him down today. The other 3 developed almost all the way, but never pipped.
In the second group, one failed to develop early and I removed it. The other three made it into the hatcher.
So today I cleaned out the hatcher, it had the 3 goose eggs in it.
1 appeared to have died 2 weeks or so ago, based on the lack of development and brown liquid.
The other 2 failed to pip internally, and died. This time instead of just tossing the eggs, I broke them open and really looked at what was inside. Did like an autopsy on them. Guess if you don't know what went wrong, or when, kind of difficult to correct.
So the 2 looked like they had developed completely, they had the feathers or fuzz stuff on them, and the yolk sac had not been absorbed. There was very little if any liquid inside the sack when I broke it. Both of them looked nearly identical, so the same thing got both.
I had them in a still air incubator, turned minimum of 3 times a day by hand. Temp was set at 100.5f at the level of the egg. I ran with atmospheric humidity, which was usually about 45-55%. Once a day I would open the incubator for 15 minutes and allow the eggs to cool, then I would turn them, mist them and close the incubator back up. I washed my hands each time before I turned the eggs, but maybe I wasn't as careful with the water bottle I misted them with. I live in the country, so no chlorine in water, but it is pretty hard. Would distilled water make any difference? Only do this once a year it seems, and a gallon or so of distilled water would be a really cheap remedy. Almost funny to think about.
On the good side, I also moved the final 4 eggs into the hatcher. The Hatcher is about 98 degrees and I'm trying to keep the humidity up about 65% or so. With these I'm going to candle ever day and try to keep track of the air pocket and any changes in it. Maybe I'll catch something along the way that will make a difference.
Any thought or ideas or comments would be appreciated. This will conclude my goose season for this year. I collected 12 eggs, and let her set on the rest. She sits on them religiously, and gets off once a day to go wash and eat and relive herself. There were 10 eggs in the nest when she got off this morning. So maybe she will have better luck than I did. This is also my first attempt to let the goose sit on her own eggs.
