First ever Goose hatch

[nurse_turtle]

I offer my hatching services locally at no charge. Someone took me up on it and brought me 4 goose eggs. I thought, "Oh s*&%!" I came straight to BYC and found a superb article on water fowl hatching. I noticed controversy regarding daily misting and cool down. As I am a strong believer in the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid), I opted for the no misting or cooling method. One egg was removed very early for infertility. The other 3 are in lockdown and 1 has externally pipped and the other 2 are pressing up against the internal membrane for internal pipping. My concern is that the one that has pipped did so on the underside of the egg. Should I turn it pip side up? The egg is resting on it's heavy side as it should. Current temp 99 and humidity 60-65%. I'm so nervous and excited for these baby geese and I don't even get to keep them.

 

[pete55]

I would advise turning the pip side uppermost.

 

[nurse_turtle]

Thank you, Pete. Will do. This morning he had knocked off a dime size chunk of shell and I can see his beak and hear him chirping.

 

[littledear]

Oh that is so cool! My goose eggs are on day 23 and I am candling them every day following Pete's directions. So far I have 15 fertile developing geese and I have seven more started in a second incubator which I will start candling this evening as they are past the first critical days. Thanks to Pete I now have all of the items he has suggested except the ability to weigh my eggs. I hope you soon have a few babies!

 

[Miss Lydia]

looking forward to pics...

 

[nurse_turtle]

Littledear,

Do you mind telling me how you do your goose egg incubation? Do you use all the daily misting and cooling after day 5 or if you skip all that? How about your humidity and temperature settings? Thanks.

 

[littledear]

I have a hovabator forced air incubator that sits at 99.5* I mist my eggs everyday after the first five days. I keep my humidity high 65 -70 and I turn them five X's a day and mist each time. My incubator cools down to around 86 when I turn and mist plus the eggs also cool down when I take them out to candle. I mist and keep the humidity high because I had a batch of goose eggs that the goslings couldn't get out of as the shells were too hard and dry. This is only my third time to incubate. I didn't have any problems with the first bunch hatching and I was very dilligent about misting. The second time I incubated I wasn't as dilligent about misting. After reading Pete's post on incubating geese I started my third bunch and I have been watching them very carefully. He has pictures that show how the air sac should look going into lockdown and what to do after they pip internally if they don't pip externally. I hope this helps you.

 

[nurse_turtle]

Yes, I have Pete's article bookmarked for quick reference. So far, the other 2 have internally pipped and the third had not progressed much past the external pip, so I chipped off a couple of already broken pieces and saw that the membrane was very dry and stuck to the baby's wing a bit. I assisted by chipping off shell and using warm wet q-tip to ease membrane away. The ducklin' seems strong so I put him back in like you see him in my hand.

 

[NYRIR]

Wow! Adorable Congrats so far! Can't wait to see more

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Good luck! Watching and hoping for a successful hatch.