Failure to thrive

[kookiekittie]

Hello,

Looking for some advice on what is going on with my goslings. I've done 3 hatches now in my incubators, and each time I've gotten at least 1 gosling who is smaller than the others. It hangs on for about 2 weeks, but barely grows, and then it dies. At first they act pretty normal and are only slightly small, but by the end it's a quarter of the size of the others and very lethargic.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

IMHO, failure to thrive can become a thing in any species. My first guesses would be genetics, nutrition and disease. Among other lesser common causes can be incubation errors and age of breeders.
I assume the parents are your birds?
Talk about their age, nutrition of parents, especially egg producers, natural or artificial incubation.
Ever have successful offspring from the same birds?

 

[kookiekittie]

I do have all the adults here, although I don't have much information on one pair, they were older mixes I got from someone else, roughly the same size as the Toulouses. I also have year old Toulouse, and 2 year old Embens.

We've been incubating them in a Little Giant following the guide on here. Not getting great hatch rates ~40%, but I was told that's pretty common with those breeds. We have 10 that we've hatched that have survived this year, the parents also hatched out about 12. I don't know which eggs belong to which goose though.

For feed, I give everyone an 18% chicken feed from my feed mill, although this time of the year they are pretty much just eating grass. And with the weird winter this year they've been eating grass since Feb.

IMHO, failure to thrive can become a thing in any species. My first guesses would be genetics, nutrition and disease. Among other lesser common causes can be incubation errors and age of breeders.
I assume the parents are your birds?
Talk about their age, nutrition of parents, especially egg producers, natural or artificial incubation.
Ever have successful offspring from the same birds?

My

 

[JRies]

Getting a smaller goose in a hatch can be normal in genetics. I have breed my biggest gander to a smaller goose this year. Out of the 5 I hatched out have 2 smaller and 3 huge goslings. All 5 are healthy but the smaller ones do lag behind a bit.

2 things that can take down a gosling quickly is pasty butt which is really common and it only takes a clog for a day to take them out since they cant hydrate.. The other is getting a chill from not enough heat once they loose core temperature they never really get it back.

I have one suggestion since your hatching yourself. Do not be in a hurry to feed them after hatch. First meal around here is usually 24 hours after hatch and its little nibbles of hard boiled egg yolk. Then 48 hours I introduce some wet flock raiser. I offer warm water in the brooder after 12 hours. adding some save a chick to there water helps also. I also do not introduce greens till they are in the pasture where they can get natural grit at about 2 weeks. Maybe some of the will help

 

[ChickenCanoe]

In my experience a 40% average rate is pretty good for a Little Giant incubator. I've had two of them as well as home built cabinets and GQF sportsmen. I call the LG an embryo exterminator.

Yeah I understand you can't quite put your finger on nutrition with geese eating so much forage.

 

[kookiekittie]

In my experience a 40% average rate is pretty good for a Little Giant incubator. I've had two of them as well as home built cabinets and GQF sportsmen. I call the LG an embryo exterminator.

Yeah I understand you can't quite put your finger on nutrition with geese eating so much forage.

Yeah, I have been less than impressed with it. Although still doing better than the moms, because they are completely hopeless and like to abandon huge nests after sitting on them for 2 weeks. Which incubator do you prefer for geese?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

For geese I've only used my home built cabinet. But it was an elaborate affair. I built a hatcher drawer into the base of a large cabinet. The incubator was a smaller cabinet that fit inside the larger unit.. Separate heat sources for both. The larger cabinet had a hatcher drawer in the bottom with a bank of fans on the left side drawing air across the eggs in the hatcher up across a 250 watt heat element, then over the top of the incubator where there was a water reservoir fillable from outside. Then the heated moist air continued down the right side and back across the hatcher eggs, making a complete loop around the incubator cabinet. This way I could open the hatcher drawer while moist air continually swept across the hatching eggs - a vast improvement over all other incubators. Inside the incubator there were two heat elements. One built into the fan blowing down over the incubator eggs. It wasn't perfect but my first prototype.
The only goose eggs I incubated in it were Canadians. I did it for my friend wo had a permit with fish and wildlife to take down Canada nests. After they hatched, she would take the goslings to a licensed rescue facility. I didn't like doing it because their down made a mess of my hatcher, clogging the fans and filters requiring cleaning and sometimes replacement after each hatch.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Yeah, I have been less than impressed with it. Although still doing better than the moms, because they are completely hopeless and like to abandon huge nests after sitting on them for 2 weeks. Which incubator do you prefer for geese?

A little giant only has a 40 watt heat element. That means it struggles to maintain temperature in even room temperature. Cooler, it struggles even more.
Add to that the older style thermostat is unstable since it comes to temperature slowly.
That is a recipe for temperature spikes and cool spells, both of which affect embryo viability.
I will never stress myself by using one ever again.