I guess spring is in the air as my egg production from the gang of chickens, ducks, and turkeys has seriously amped up in the last few days. The piles of eggs on my kitchen table are accumulating much faster and demanding my attention more frequently. My girls are pretty good about laying where they should but it's so muddy out, they track mud into the nests with them, resulting in dirty eggs. Those big webbed waterfowl feet are the worst of course.
So last night I was rinsing mud and found one egg much bigger than the others that I had thought was a duck egg, but now I'm reconsidering. I have two Chinese geese that I adopted later this fall when they were teeneagers. I have no idea their sex, and a friend of mine who is a lifelong raiser of poultry couldn't discern either. They sound pretty much the same, one is only a hair bigger than the other, and one is fairly outgoing and the other fairly shy. Both are loud and talkative. The only way I can tell them apart is that one will eventually come to eat out of my hand and the other will hold back a few feet.
So aside from segregating birds, any suggestions on discerning if this is a goose egg or a freakishly big dug egg? I'd say off the top of my head this eggs is 25% bigger than my Pekin duck eggs and definitely heavier/denser feeling. My postal scale just went kaput so no weighing today.
How often do Chinese geese lay and do they get broody? I'm not trying for baby anything so I pick all eggs everyday. I wouldn't mind two more goslings, but I already have too many males of other birds and while I love them, they don't love each other. Good thing, or I would be hatching!
So last night I was rinsing mud and found one egg much bigger than the others that I had thought was a duck egg, but now I'm reconsidering. I have two Chinese geese that I adopted later this fall when they were teeneagers. I have no idea their sex, and a friend of mine who is a lifelong raiser of poultry couldn't discern either. They sound pretty much the same, one is only a hair bigger than the other, and one is fairly outgoing and the other fairly shy. Both are loud and talkative. The only way I can tell them apart is that one will eventually come to eat out of my hand and the other will hold back a few feet.
So aside from segregating birds, any suggestions on discerning if this is a goose egg or a freakishly big dug egg? I'd say off the top of my head this eggs is 25% bigger than my Pekin duck eggs and definitely heavier/denser feeling. My postal scale just went kaput so no weighing today.
How often do Chinese geese lay and do they get broody? I'm not trying for baby anything so I pick all eggs everyday. I wouldn't mind two more goslings, but I already have too many males of other birds and while I love them, they don't love each other. Good thing, or I would be hatching!
