FLOODED GOOSE EGGS

[littlefiremen4]

We found six goose eggs in a nest (laid approx 2 weeks ago), submerged under 6 inches of flood water near the edge of our pond this morning. We recovered the soggy nest and eggs, and moved them to higher ground. The mother acted interested, but refused to sit on them. We think they were under water for a couple of hours. We have moved them inside with dry litter and a heat lamp. Any Suggestions? Are we too late?

 

[birdlover]

There was another thread on here recently about wild turkey eggs that were found submerged. They put them in the incubator with the chicken eggs they were hatching but didn't really expect anything to happen. Guess what! They did! So, yes, there is hope if you have an incubator.

 

[Glenda L Heywood]

I would say candle them to see if any movement of life in the eggs
then get a incubator and put them in it to finish
geese
some information you may want to read from Mtezers ducks and geese is this
from

HATCHING DUCKS AND GEESE Incubating and Hatching Ducks and Geese. The incubation and hatching of duck and goose .... For more detailed information on solving incubation and hatching ...
www.metzerfarms.com/hatch.htm - 10k - Cached - Similar pages
Incubation Hatching


Day 1-25 Day 26-28


Temperature 99.5 98.5


Humidity 86 94


Turns/day 3-7 0
Sometimes it is recommended to spray waterfowl eggs daily. This can be done with a small amount of room temperature water. You can then leave the top of the incubator off for several minutes after watering. At times this can be of benefit. If you do it, start at day 7 and do not spray after day 25. The actual consequences of spraying is interesting. It changes the membrane of the egg so a greater percentage of moisture is lost during incubation. Ideally a duck egg looses about 13% of its weight between the time it is laid and day 25 of incubation. Loosing significantly more or less than this reduces hatchability.

 

[McChics]

I'm in a similar situation - I made up an incubator using a plastic tote and put a rack in the bottom with a flood light on top. I put a wet sponge on the floor and put the six eggs in. They are staying around 95-105 using a temp scan gun. I think they are only a few days old. the egg surface is dry, but my container has wet walls from the moisture/humidity. I don't know if this is too much or not. We grabbed 90% of the nest just as the flood washed mamma off it. We are waiting for the waters to go down - maybe by this afternoon and I'll attempt to reset the nest. Momma and daddy are out there looking for it the last two days. I fear I've harmed the eggs though because we first moved the next over to a non-flooded spot but it was in the 40s and they got really cold for a few hours. Now I don't know if I've caused too much humidity.

Way over my head here - the way we see it she was losing them anyway as the water was just washing up to the nest when I dove into the creek and snagged them. I've been turning them about four times a day. Getting the temp right has been a trick. The first night I kept them in the bucket that has her nesting material and I put some water in the nesting material and sprayed the eggs a few times. I had the lamp over it with a blanket but it was clearly too dry - now I think we are too wet - but I don't know.

Right now I could go place her nest about 10 feet from where she had it. I don't know if she will go back on it if it isn't in the exact spot. We have another round of rain tomorrow that may flood the area again - so not sure if we hold on to them for another day or so.

 

[McChics]

Update - flooding not going down very quickly. The little island area in the creek is still under and we have major rain coming which will put it back under. I put the nest back down there about 8' off from the original spot as soon as I saw them back again hunting for it. They sniffed around, started to sit on the nest...then wandered off. Both of them checked it out but I guess there is a scent or the minor change in location...or maybe the eggs are no longer viable and they know it. They are down there this morning all around it - but not on it. So, mission fail. They were going to lose it anyway so I attempted to help. Lesson learned. I know they are a protected species and I would never have interacted with them if I hadn't come to the conclusion the nest was lost no matter what. They do this every year, and every year they lose the nest. We have lived here since 2016 and seen this unfold over and over.

 

[Canadaduck1]

Update - flooding not going down very quickly. The little island area in the creek is still under and we have major rain coming which will put it back under. I put the nest back down there about 8' off from the original spot as soon as I saw them back again hunting for it. They sniffed around, started to sit on the nest...then wandered off. Both of them checked it out but I guess there is a scent or the minor change in location...or maybe the eggs are no longer viable and they know it. They are down there this morning all around it - but not on it. So, mission fail. They were going to lose it anyway so I attempted to help. Lesson learned. I know they are a protected species and I would never have interacted with them if I hadn't come to the conclusion the nest was lost no matter what. They do this every year, and every year they lose the nest. We have lived here since 2016 and seen this unfold over and over.

Just experienced the same thing, we did exactly what you did (made sense). Fingers crossed that she gets back on the newly made nest (dry ornamental grass) which we placed about 10 inches back from the submerged nest. There are 5 eggs, think they were underwater for about an hour. Really sad if they're no longer viable. She had been on the nest for around 17 days.