Gosling advice

[bigbillybagel]

Hi guys,

So despite the sudden death of our 3 month old gosling Barnaby last year, I decided that the time was right to let Daisy (the dominant goose of the group) keep an egg and hatch a new member of the family.

Last time I gave the fertitilised goose eggs to my broody chooks as the geese were forever fighting and scuffling over the nests, knocking the eggs around so I felt that this was the best option. The only problem was that this ended up with the gosling having a "chicken mum" and Daisy the mother goose trying to be with the gosling, which in turn scared the gosling as he didn't of course know that she was his real mum. The gosling (Barnaby) then died suddenly at 3 months old, we presume he ate something he shouldn't have from the garden somewhere as he passed within 24 hours.

So this time I thought it best to leave Daisy with the egg from 3 weeks to hope that she'd protect and help hatch the egg correctly. The new gosling was born yesterday (after 4 weeks) and to be honest I was anticipating a later arrival so hadn't cleaned their house in preparation, so my questions are the folowing:-

Should I leave the cleaning of the house for now (maybe a week or 2?) as when I go to the door I receive a chorus of hisses from 3 of the geese (not Daisy, strangely enough)?

Regarding food, what recommendations do you have? In our local shop they do a gosling feed, I presume this is enough or should I be looking at adding other things? At what stage can I introduce grass clippings as I have read conflicting advice?

I emptied the goose pool this morning just in case, as I didn't want to risk the gosling wandering out of the house and falling in - at what stage can I refill the pool so that the others can bathe without worrying about it?

I know that the gosling requires water on a permanent basis - I don't leave water in their house at night usually as they're forever knocking the water containers over - so I last night placed a cat water gravity bottle in there, as the drinking part is not deep (cue the geese going bonkers as they didn't recognise it and saw it as somekind of threat!). Is there anything that I need to add to the water to help the goslings growth or should I just leave it as is?

Sorry for the avalanche of questions but I am so desperate for this little one to thrive that I really want to get it spot on!

Thanks!

Edit- here are some pics:-

 

[Miss Lydia]

Your geese will protect that gosling with their lives. They are the best body guards you could ask for. I am not sure your going to have access until mama brings the gosling outside for the first time then you could go inside long enough to clean. All your geese can eat gosling feed. When I have babies my flock eats starter /grower until the goslings/ducklings/chicks can eat layer or you could feed and all flock crumble starting now. You want to add some niacin to the feed and it will not hurt the other, i like to use Nutritional yeast for the niacin it can be sprinkled right over their feed at 1 Tab to each cup of feed. Do the Nutritional yeast until at least 12 weeks old. My flock are all adults and they still get Nutritional yeast sprinkled over their feed because it is so good for them.
Unless your pool has easy way in and out I would wait for a while to introduce the pool but a small paint tray or something similar [I used a cat litter tray] would work once the gosling is out with the others. The adults can wash up in a deep bucket for now. Unless you can block mama and gosling off from the others. Just make sure what you for the adults the gosling can't get into.
Poultry cell or Nutri drench both are great at giving newly hatched a good start. Mama will teach the gosling to eat grass when she is ready.

 

[bigbillybagel]

Thanks for the reply


This morning Gustavo (the dad) and Primrose (the Grandmother) took the little one out for a walk (is this normal, as it's only 3 days old?) so I managed to gently usher one of the other girls out of the house and lift Daisy (the mum, who was sitting on another egg) out so that I could clean the house out and put down nice new straw and bedding.

The little one seems healthy and inquisitive but I've not really seen it drink yet? I presume it has been otherwise after 3 days I presume that it surely would have perished?

I put in some special gosling food but it doesn't appear interested in that at all!

 

[Miss Lydia]

The geese will show it food and water. If it was outside with the dad and grandma hopefully they showed it grass if you have grass?
Did they stay right close to the gosling? main thing is it can get safely back to mama and they don't leave it outside alone. I wouldn't think they would but make sure the little one can get back into the house. Do you know when the next egg is due to hatch? it will be nice for this gosling to have a buddy to grow up with. My goose when broody is not aggressive at all she leaves that up to the others. lol That was nice you were able to get some cleaning done.

 

[bigbillybagel]

They're in their enclosure, there's not really any grass in there as it was previously a chook area (I have plans to re-plant soon), but I leave their enclosure open when I'm at home so that they can come out to graze whenever they like. They haven't as yet come outside with the little one.

With regards to the other egg, I have given to my neighbour who wanted to incubate it and have geese - if it was down to me I'd have a LOT more than we have but my wife has put her foot down big time on that unfortunately


I just popped outside and watched them for a while and saw the little one have a drink so I'm now 100% reassured

 

[Miss Lydia]

They are beautiful, and look how tiny that little one is. The adults will be so careful with it. it just warms my heart when I see them with babies. You can try chopping up some romaine lettuce very tiny and giving that to them all. Since they have the little one outside she can find her own grit. My goose and ducks and chickens love romaine lettuce. I don't have grass in their 1/2 acre since the chickens took care of all of it. So mama isn't on an egg is she one of the adults outside with the little one? The only thing I worried about when mine had goslings was them getting spooked and trampling them but it never happened thank goodness.

 

[bigbillybagel]

Yeah Gustavo accidentally stepped on the gosling yesterday but it seemed fine after squeaking at him.

Funnily enough I put some lettuce in yesterday and it was trying to grab hold of it, I was hoping the adults would shred it a bit for it but they just ate it!

The mum (Daisy) is on the left of the picture, she's a mixed breed Toulouse and something else I'm not sure what exactly, we inherited them all from friends that were moving back to England from France so I offered to take them so the history is a little sketchy

 

[Miss Lydia]

That's what I have full Production Toulouse female I lost my Embden gander Feb a year ago. He was almost 15 yrs old. Thank goodness the gosling squeaked at him. I saw my gander step on a duckling and the little thing just got up and ran off. I wouldn't want that to happen often though. My avatar is my Embden gander who I called [papa goose] he is with his Muscovy duckling who he baby sitted when mama duck went off foraging.

 

[Goosey Girl]

Beautiful pictures...your geese are being perfect parents!