Goose eggs

[New duck mommy 2021]

I am going to try my luck at hatching my goose eggs
Anyone with tips and experience please share

My goose is young so I know it’s possible it won’t work
This is her second batch
She was born in April 2023.
She started to lay in late nov / dec
Then stopped till a few days ago
Her gander is almost 2 years old and they have been fully in breeding since mid December
The first batch we just ate the eggs or gave away for friends and family to eat
I have tried reading online and there are many different ways
Turning the eggs - some said side to side and others said end over end
Humidity was ranging from 50% to 70
Misting and cooling was day 5 others said day 15
I hatch a lot of duck eggs with great hatch rates
I mist cool starting day 10
My humidity is 40-45%
I turn side to side
Wondering if I follow the same guidelines I use for my duck eggs or if I need to change things up
Any advice with great success would be greatly appreciated
Her eggs average 138-148 grams
Stella and Gary are Pomeranian saddlebacks

 

[MGG]

I am going to try my luck at hatching my goose eggs
Anyone with tips and experience please share

My goose is young so I know it’s possible it won’t work
This is her second batch
She was born in April 2023.
She started to lay in late nov / dec
Then stopped till a few days ago
Her gander is almost 2 years old and they have been fully in breeding since mid December
The first batch we just ate the eggs or gave away for friends and family to eat
I have tried reading online and there are many different ways
Turning the eggs - some said side to side and others said end over end
Humidity was ranging from 50% to 70
Misting and cooling was day 5 others said day 15
I hatch a lot of duck eggs with great hatch rates
I mist cool starting day 10
My humidity is 40-45%
I turn side to side
Wondering if I follow the same guidelines I use for my duck eggs or if I need to change things up
Any advice with great success would be greatly appreciated
Her eggs average 138-148 grams
Stella and Gary are Pomeranian saddlebacks

They're handsome geese, good luck! I hatch goose eggs the same way I hatch my duck eggs and have always had very good hatches. I've never heard of turning the other way. Turn side to side, an odd number of times a day and alternating the side they sit on at night.

 

[New duck mommy 2021]

They're handsome geese, good luck! I hatch goose eggs the same way I hatch my duck eggs and have always had very good hatches. I've never heard of turning the other way. Turn side to side, an odd number of times a day and alternating the side they sit on at night.

Perfect
Thank you

 

[MGG]

Perfect
Thank you

No problem!

 

[Tennessee Great Granny]

I am going to try my luck at hatching my goose eggs
Anyone with tips and experience please share

My goose is young so I know it’s possible it won’t work
This is her second batch
She was born in April 2023.
She started to lay in late nov / dec
Then stopped till a few days ago
Her gander is almost 2 years old and they have been fully in breeding since mid December
The first batch we just ate the eggs or gave away for friends and family to eat
I have tried reading online and there are many different ways
Turning the eggs - some said side to side and others said end over end
Humidity was ranging from 50% to 70
Misting and cooling was day 5 others said day 15
I hatch a lot of duck eggs with great hatch rates
I mist cool starting day 10
My humidity is 40-45%
I turn side to side
Wondering if I follow the same guidelines I use for my duck eggs or if I need to change things up
Any advice with great success would be greatly appreciated
Her eggs average 138-148 grams
Stella and Gary are Pomeranian saddlebacks

I know this is after your original posting but this is my best goose hatching recipe and it works on fertile eggs. I raise Sebastopols. They are endangered simply because they only lay between 25-35 eggs per year. FIRST YEAR EGGS: almost never survive but I was sold some and hatched them out. They are smaller eggs the first year. Even fertile ones don't hatch well and they die in their shells. I watched them and assisted the last two who were too weak to get themselves hatched. I syringe fed them all watered down duck yolk with liquid vitamin D and some B12 . The water I used was distilled water with probiotics and vitamins with essential oils added. Feeding them entails opening their little bills and using a 1 cc tiny syringe to force feed them tiny amounts every two hours.I started with 1/10 of a cc of duck yolk and increased until each swallow was 2/10th or 3/10th of a cc depending upon how well tolerated) I did not tip their heads back. On humans this opens the airways wider and it makes it possible to drown someone if forcing liquids down their throats. I wasn't sure if it's the same with geese but I wasn't taking any chances! It takes time and patience and by day 3 or 4 they graduated to a watered down gruel of duck starter and I gradually thickened it. Eventually they started eating the moistened duck starter on their own. But I had to watch the weakest baby because she would get too weak and so I'd give her some supplemental feedings. I was able to space the feeds out to every 3-4 hours. They were too weak to swim but feeding them was messy work. They were fully supported and bathed in 100 degree water and dried extremely well with towels and a hairdryer.They rallied and we love them like crazy. It was a few days of intense work, but worth our efforts.They are not sickly or weak as adults! Powder Puff and Romeo remain besties and friendly family favorites forever. BFFFF!
HATCHING METHOD: this I found from a French college of agriculture that showed best hatching rates for Sebastopols. Most goose eggs that are fresh are fertile. First year eggs are tiny and often don't hatch out with the mature chick dying inside. Choose second year eggs (but if you don't see above) do not use a turner, even one designed for geese. but do stabilize them so they are not rolling all over in the incubator and banging into one another if they get bumped by me which happens during turning. I use pieces of clean cardboard and cut out holes just big enough to hold each egg stable . Inspect each egg in the candlers before placement. Mark each egg with the date placed in the incubator, and if you've paid a fortune for your eggs and notice a small fracture of the shell- melt a white birthday candle in the microwave in a paper bowl and thinly paint a wax band-aid over the entire crack. If the egg is infertile, or black stuff is growing around the crack early toss it. A live baby will become infected, die growing bad bacteria and could potentially infect the rest of your eggs.You'll know by the smell of the egg and oozing goo. I choose to incubate cracked & repaired eggs in a smaller separate incubator not made of styrofoam and watch them closely. I also watch for fractured air cells, especially shipped eggs. Even a small fracture can repair itself. Some say leave them out of the incubator overnight, but the longer they are on the counter the older and less fertile they become. I take a jumbo 18 egg carton and cut out 9 spaces and place the fracture air cell egg in the center slot, pointed end down. It's placed inside the periphery of incubator so it's not hitting the heater. If the fracture is almost repaired by day 2 but not quite- I start slightly tipping it from one side to the other and by day 4 even if the air cell is not repaired fully it is laid down in it's cardboard cradle with the rest of the eggs.They will often reveal either they weren't fertile to begin with or they go on to repair fully.Turning end to end can reopen a fractured air cell. It's also been suspected of causing breech position inside of the egg. They should be turned side to side. The French study showed better hatch rates with side to side turning.
ALL EGGS: once placed in their cardboard cradles inside of a warm incubator are turned side to side 6 times a day and are turned 6 times a day until lock-down. Obtain a nice short one cup sprayer (I think I found mine at big lots) and fill it with distilled water (steam distilled is best because it's generally been made sterile by the steam distillation process). Place this full sprayer inside of your incubator and it will always be just the right temperature to spray your sweet egg babies with. If you absolutely must miss a turning or two make sure you turn them an uneven number of times. This is because at night time they are left in the same position the longest. You don't want them in that very same position night after night. Turning stimulates the baby inside and also keeps the baby from sticking to one side of the shell. Turning 6 times a day gives maximum stimulation, and they aren't going to stick to the shell wall no matter what. Starting on day ten spray one side of your egg inside of the incubator and turn it and then spray the other side. The cardboard cradles will start to warp eventually requiring some to be replaced but the eggs need to remain stably placed. I have ordered some goose eggs trays for my HovaBator 1855 egg turner. I do not intend to use them in the egg turner because I hear and read that mechanically turned eggs get poor results... BUT I was going to try just a few on just an independent egg tray sitting inside the incubator floor instead of the card board cradles. They are certainly water impervious. I could potentially incubate more eggs inside my HovaBator Genesis 1588 instead of the half dozen or so on cardboard cradles that I currently do in a batch. Do not ever removed the eggs from the incubator to cool them down.Make sure you only spray with 100 degree warm water. With the spraying and evaporation-convection from the heater fan is their cool down. This was imperative according to the French study. They are candled on day 10 to check fertility. I mark air cells. Again at day 15 to check growth and air sac development from day 10. And again closer to hatching and remarking new air cell lines. The shells get more brittle the closer to hatching (first year eggs tend to have thicker tougher shells and also really thick tough inner membranes- the shells never get very brittle). Candling near hatch: I usually see movement along the inner air cell membrane. Sometimes I see a bill protruding into the air space. Thus far if a goose egg has been fertile I've gotten a baby. I do not assist unless they are first year eggs, or it's externally pipped and just not progressing. If I start to help and get blood (a trace of "pink" is not worrisome) it's time to immediately stop and staunch the flow with a styptic pencil (shaving department of any drug store) or clean paper towel and leave that baby alone! It's just not ready!!! Often they will eventually hatch out on their own but if not - then "a good many hours " later I'll try again. Patience is more than a virtue when hatching goslings, it's a must.Never force hatch a baby prematurely. Always poking holes in an eggshell isn't saving a life. Breathing is more than just taking in oxygen. It's also blowing off carbon dioxide. A study I read about the physical dynamics of egg hatching says the lack of oxygen stimulates the baby to puncture the air cell. If the baby is breech in the shell they will peck a hole in the wrong end instead of the air cell- leave them alone they aren't ready for a long time yet- they are in survival mode and made their own emergency air hole. I seldom lose a breech baby and I don't assist hatch unless they are overdue. As carbon dioxide builds in the baby it causes their neck muscles to stiffen- this increases their ability to peck open their own egg shells. So the birth struggle is important to hatching out babies. I worked in medicine most of my life in one discipline or another and it was always known of humans there is something about a little bit of the birth trauma that stimulates and increases the survival of babies the only exception is extreme premature human births which can't handle any birth trauma if it can at all be helped. Some newborn babies (people) don't always cry immediately after birth until their carbon dioxide levels build up a little bit which stimulates them to breathe. It would seem that very same fact is true of baby birds.