Goose with duck eggs?

[Luv4scjjt]

My female goose laid about 4-5 eggs last week. We collected them but this poor girl has gone broody anyway...we have tried every day for the last week to keep her out of the nest to no avail. So today I took 4 duck (freshly laid)eggs and put them under her in hopes maybe she will hatch them. I feel very bad that we took her eggs at this point. I didn't realize she would go broody. She is not quite a yr old so I figured next yr was better. She wasn't broody when we took her eggs. She went broody after we took her last one. Will she brood the duck eggs? They should be fertile. Ps. Was told she is African but I think she is chinese.

 

[Iain Utah]

Don't feel bad about taking her eggs. She'll eventually get over being broody and life will go on as usual for her.

However, if you want her to hatch babies, you can use duck eggs. Last year, I had a goose hatch a pair of muscovy ducklings. It was adorable to watch the goose with her babies. However despite remaining gentle with them, she lost interest in raising them by the time they were a month old.

 

[Luv4scjjt]

Don't feel bad about taking her eggs. She'll eventually get over being broody and life will go on as usual for her.

However, if you want her to hatch babies, you can use duck eggs. Last year, I had a goose hatch a pair of muscovy ducklings. It was adorable to watch the goose with her babies. However despite remaining gentle with them, she lost interest in raising them by the time they were a month old.

Ya I would love it if she incubated the duck eggs. We were planning on incubating them.

 

[Iain Utah]

Then it is a win-win. Keep the incubator on standby since she is a young goose, in case she decides to leave nest before hatching. Best of luck!

 

[Luv4scjjt]

Thank u. Will do. Glad to hear there's a chance.

 

[Cindyetal]

The goose will be fine raising ducklings, just don't mix breed of hatchlings. My goose (actually the one in my photo) was trying to go broody her first year last year and I kept collecting her eggs. She ended up sitting on a duck nest the same day the mama duck got killed by a predator. I was incubating a goose egg of hers and fortunately it was going to hatch the same day as the ducks so right before hatch I slipped her own egg under her with the duck eggs. 4 ducklings and one gosling hatched. The goose was great with the babies but the ducklings are more agile earlier and run around and jump in water dishes and the mama goose kept up with the ducks and the gosling wasn't as agile and got left behind. One morning I got up and the gosling was cheeping all alone and cold in the front yard (at about 3 days old). I brought it inside and put it in a warm brooder, my husband was home monitoring it. He gave it heat, electrolyte water with karo syrup and through the day it got worse and died. The mama raised the ducklings. The rest of the geese were not so excited with the ducklings (they had older goslings they were attached to) but she was so proud. Your goose should be fine with the ducklings but I just want people to be on the lookout for potential problems if the have a mixture of hatching breeds, they don't mature at the same rates.

 

[Luv4scjjt]

Thank u so much. That is great to know. Right now she is only on duck eggs. Although it went from 4 eggs to 9 in the last couple weeks. Either she collects the duck eggs or more ducks are adding eggs ads she goes to eat or drink. I have to go through and take out the infertal one a tonight. Lol. But no goose eggs in the mix. She laid 4 but we coleccted them all before ahe went bloody. We did end up getting some goslings. Right now they are about 1 week old. If I took her eggs and gave her a gosling or to do u think she would care for it or is there no chance of fooling her?

 

[Cindyetal]

Thank u so much. That is great to know. Right now she is only on duck eggs. Although it went from 4 eggs to 9 in the last couple weeks. Either she collects the duck eggs or more ducks are adding eggs ads she goes to eat or drink. I have to go through and take out the infertal one a tonight. Lol. But no goose eggs in the mix. She laid 4 but we coleccted them all before ahe went bloody. We did end up getting some goslings. Right now they are about 1 week old. If I took her eggs and gave her a gosling or to do u think she would care for it or is there no chance of fooling her?

You can try but at a week old the goslings may not want to stay with her since they have been 10 days with you. I had a co-nesting situation in which one goose kept adding to the nest the other was on and when the first ones hatched everyone took off and followed them. I ended up hatching 5 more eggs over the course of two weeks. None on the same day because they were each laid a different day. Beware of that added problem with eggs added to the nest.