Help with goose clutch

[Sheepheart]

Hi, I’ve had a goose go broody so I’ve been leaving the eggs the geese have been laying to her. Since I did this this is how the clutch grew
Day 1 2eggs
Day2 4 eggs and one crushed egg
Day3 there were then two nest in the dogloo, 6 eggs in the front and I’m not sure how many in the back as broody goose was sitting on.
Day4 9 eggs in the front nest and looks like 2 in the back nest.
When I checked on my broody goose this morning she was sitting on the back nest and had her neck stretched out to try and cover the front nest, when she left to join the others she did cover the eggs in the front nest and also the eggs in the back. So she is caring for two nests of eggs. I know have have multiple girls laying and that multiple will go in the dogloo at once, but I always have just this girl who broods and cares for the eggs, should I combine the nests contents to make it easier for her to keep them warm of just leave them since she hasn’t combined them herself?

I’ll continue to update this with egg counts and what she does with them

 

[sourland]

A staggered hatch like this generally results in a disaster. Generally within 36 hours of the first egg hatching, all mother birds leave the nest. Have a back up plan in mind - an incubator may be necessary.

 

[Sheepheart]

A staggered hatch like this generally results in a disaster. Generally within 36 hours of the first egg hatching, all mother birds leave the nest. Have a back up plan in mind - an incubator may be necessary.

Good to know, thank you! I have a nearly full incubator going right now, goslings should hatch around Easter, but by the looks of ther development they probably won’t be hatching at all. Which is why I decided to let my broody goose have a go at it.

 

[Sheepheart]

Update:
Ten eggs in the front nest and one broken one and one egg in the back nest. I’m removing two because I noticed one is a double and the other is a torpedo

 

[Tilhana]

Hi, I’ve had a goose go broody so I’ve been leaving the eggs the geese have been laying to her. Since I did this this is how the clutch grew
Day 1 2eggs
Day2 4 eggs and one crushed egg
Day3 there were then two nest in the dogloo, 6 eggs in the front and I’m not sure how many in the back as broody goose was sitting on.
Day4 9 eggs in the front nest and looks like 2 in the back nest.
When I checked on my broody goose this morning she was sitting on the back nest and had her neck stretched out to try and cover the front nest, when she left to join the others she did cover the eggs in the front nest and also the eggs in the back. So she is caring for two nests of eggs. I know have have multiple girls laying and that multiple will go in the dogloo at once, but I always have just this girl who broods and cares for the eggs, should I combine the nests contents to make it easier for her to keep them warm of just leave them since she hasn’t combined them herself?

I’ll continue to update this with egg counts and what she does with them

I'm trying to do the broody goose sitting on eggs thing for the first time this year, but my approach has been to collect the eggs daily and mark the date they were collected. If/when a goose actually goes broody, then I'll add 8 or 9 of the freshest eggs I have stored, or as many as I have under 10 days old, so that they all start at the same time.

Of course, this may be backfiring, as I've read that they're more likely to go broody if you allow the eggs in the nest to accumulate. So I'm wondering if I should trick them by putting some of the oldest eggs in the nest, then once htey go broody, switch them out for fresh ones. Idk, this is my first time around with geese so I'm just brainstorming.

When you talk about torpedos, are those the really long narrow eggs they sometimes lay? I've been calling them the same thing without realizing it was an "industry term" lol. Are those less viable, though?

 

[Sheepheart]

I'm trying to do the broody goose sitting on eggs thing for the first time this year, but my approach has been to collect the eggs daily and mark the date they were collected. If/when a goose actually goes broody, then I'll add 8 or 9 of the freshest eggs I have stored, or as many as I have under 10 days old, so that they all start at the same time.

Of course, this may be backfiring, as I've read that they're more likely to go broody if you allow the eggs in the nest to accumulate. So I'm wondering if I should trick them by putting some of the oldest eggs in the nest, then once htey go broody, switch them out for fresh ones. Idk, this is my first time around with geese so I'm just brainstorming.

When you talk about torpedos, are those the really long narrow eggs they sometimes lay? I've been calling them the same thing without realizing it was an "industry term" lol. Are those less viable, though?

Good idea dating the eggs! I really should start doing that!

a goose is more likely to go broody when they have multiple eggs. This is the same with most nesting birds. You may be able to return some of the older eggs and she might decide to start setting, I imagine it would be no different than adding a fake egg to a box to get birds to start laying in it.

lol yea torpedos are the oddly oblong eggs. I didn’t know it was an industry term either. They arnt the best for hatching due to their shape, they typically don’t have as much of a diameter as a normal goose egg and the shape also effects the air sac in reference to the developing gosling, so there can be a potential problem there to. If she is laying torpedos though, they may be good to leave to try and get her to go broody?

 

[Tilhana]

Good idea dating the eggs! I really should start doing that!

a goose is more likely to go broody when they have multiple eggs. This is the same with most nesting birds. You may be able to return some of the older eggs and she might decide to start setting, I imagine it would be no different than adding a fake egg to a box to get birds to start laying in it.

lol yea torpedos are the oddly oblong eggs. I didn’t know it was an industry term either. They arnt the best for hatching due to their shape, they typically don’t have as much of a diameter as a normal goose egg and the shape also effects the air sac in reference to the developing gosling, so there can be a potential problem there to. If she is laying torpedos though, they may be good to leave to try and get her to go broody?

Yeah I was thinking that, that maybe I'd pick out the oldest ones and the torpedos and pile them in the nest and see if they decide to sit. I'm also a little nervous because I have 2 females who seem to be sharing a nest and I've read that they can get in each other's way and cause all kinds of problems. But I can't really separate them as I only have one pool and one male and it doesn't seem fair to make one of them have to go without.

It's funny, last year when I tried to incubate a few goose eggs, it was a total failure, and I did all this reasearch that seemed to suggest that incubating goose eggs is really hard and it's better to just let a broody goose do it, especially since they're more wild than chickens and haven't had the maternal instincts bred out of them as much and make really good parents. So I bought and raised 3 goslings to make a breeding trio and figured I'd try it the natural way this year. And now when I research how to facilitate letting a broody goose do it, I keep seeing people saying how it's so hard to get geese to hatch eggs, and you're better off putting them in an incubator.

 

[Sheepheart]

Yeah I was thinking that, that maybe I'd pick out the oldest ones and the torpedos and pile them in the nest and see if they decide to sit. I'm also a little nervous because I have 2 females who seem to be sharing a nest and I've read that they can get in each other's way and cause all kinds of problems. But I can't really separate them as I only have one pool and one male and it doesn't seem fair to make one of them have to go without.

It's funny, last year when I tried to incubate a few goose eggs, it was a total failure, and I did all this reasearch that seemed to suggest that incubating goose eggs is really hard and it's better to just let a broody goose do it, especially since they're more wild than chickens and haven't had the maternal instincts bred out of them as much and make really good parents. So I bought and raised 3 goslings to make a breeding trio and figured I'd try it the natural way this year. And now when I research how to facilitate letting a broody goose do it, I keep seeing people saying how it's so hard to get geese to hatch eggs, and you're better off putting them in an incubator.

Yea, first time layers/hatchets arnt always the best at hatching out eggs, I’m told that after that have goslings they are better the next time they nest.
Also I decided to try putting some of my torpedos in a second nesting box that the geese weren’t using that I wanted them to use. Three nests and three geese in one dogloo works but definitely not preferred. It did work after two days, one girl moved and began laying and sitting in the new box consistently. Now there seem to be four geese in the dogloo, I guess more girls have gone broody XD

 

[Sierra G]

Torpedos are, or can be, viable; they can cause positioning problems though. I had 8 of 12 eggs hatch last Sunday. Two were quitters and two were torpedos that pipped on the wrong end. I put them in as a test because someone suggested that since the geese were only a bit over 8 months old the eggs wouldn't be fertile. That wasn't true.

 

[Sheepheart]

Torpedos are, or can be, viable; they can cause positioning problems though. I had 8 of 12 eggs hatch last Sunday. Two were quitters and two were torpedos that pipped on the wrong end. I put them in as a test because someone suggested that since the geese were only a bit over 8 months old the eggs wouldn't be fertile. That wasn't true.

Interesting that someone told you that? As long as the gander is producing and the goose is laying it shouldn’t matter on the age. When a gander is young your less likely to get fertile eggs because he hasn’t figured it out yet but you can still get them.