I will hopefully have fun watching everyone else hatch eggs from my girls. My neighbor's oldest son is 13yo (I think?) and quite the poultry lover. He sadly lost all of his birds in a barn fire over the winter. He got the 1st three eggs from Ginger, my buff dewlap girl, and all 3 are developing on day 10.
RiverGoddess set another pair of Ginger's eggs on Friday and now Miss Lydia set eggs today from Beignet.
Miss Lydia, The same day I received your suggestion I was trying to figure out where I could put Harriet and decide if I should let her come and go as she naturally does or keep her penned up with the eggs. I didn't want to upset her enough that she would abandon the nest altogether. I received a call from a terminally ill friend and had to leave the farm. When I left Harriet was on the nest and being protected by 3 adult ganders (Ozzie, George, and Ol' Blue Eyes; we call him Frankie.) I returned 2 hours later and the eggs were gone! No signs or evidence of a predator or the eggs .For predators I have raccoons, possums, and coyotes, but I have never seen them during the day. We also have a few adult Bald Eagles that think I'm running a buffet for them, and several well fed barn cats including one that chose to have her 2 kittens about 6 feet away from the nest. Mama cat and our goose Gracie never seem to mind each other as they went about their days.
How's Harriet? I am hoping she and the ganders are okay. My guess either a Opossum or raccoon, i am thinking opossum because coyote would probably kill the meat which would be one of the geese also a raccoon would probably go after a goose unless it was more advantageous to just take the eggs. I'm thinking an eagle would open the eggs and eat the contents leaving evidence.I really doubt a cat could carry off a gooses eggs either they are so large.
