I'm a horrible Mother Goose...

[AllCoop'dUp]

Started with 1 Buff Africian sitting on a few eggs right smack in front of the chickens 15 nesting boxes. I moved her into a spacious private covered nesting box in the corner, and gave her eight more goose eggs I had been holding for this brooding moment! Total of 12 eggs. Next morning she had moved outside the box and her sister BA joined her in the nest. Even taking all the wooden nesting eggs out of their boxes and sitting on them! Now I have 2 setting goose chasing the chickens away from their nest boxes and I'm finding chickens eggs all over the place!

Plus my gander standing guard hissing and preventing anyone coming into the coop to even roost! Eggs due to hatch on Sunday 4/15. Finally!!! a baby!! next day another baby...One of the BA geese goes to take a break, get something to eat, etc and doesn't return to the nest. WHAT THE HECK! What a nightmare! But that OK, because all of a sudden my Crested Roman goose decides to get in on the hatching action and sits next to the BA. I have this "great" idea... to take the 10 ready to hatch (4/24) Cayuga duck eggs away from the Mottled Java hen, gave her 6 store bought MJ chicks and give the duck eggs to the C. Roman to hatch. (I only did this because I was afraid that the humidity for hatching the duck eggs wasn't high enough and they would have a better chance under the C. Roman. Yeah!! it worked...a cute little black duckling hatches on Tuesday. Then diaster hits......Go out to water and feed the new hatchlings and baby duck is no where to be found. I look under the Roman, no eggs. Look under the BA...she's got all the goose and duck eggs under her and several of the duck eggs are smashed flat with dead babies half way out. I'm thinking.."live & learn". Saturday morning I find one of the little goslings dead tossed out of the nest. Sunday morning, I find the other little gosling dead under the mother. None of the other eggs have hatched. When should I call it done and pull the remaining eggs?

I have decided to build a separate pen/house for the geese this summer near the pond so this doesn't happen next year.

Do Geese accept new members into their flock? If I get goslings and brood them, when it's time to let them out with the general population will they be excepted into the existing group? I've noticed that my flock of 5 ducks don't allow any new members and was wondering if geese are the same way.

 

[larkflying]

If the goslings are young enough to still peep, most geese will take over as parents with great enthusiasm . . . just introduce them slowly so they get used to the idea.

Sorry about the hatching issues -- I have 5 broody geese -- Took the eggs away from one because I was positive it had been too long. The second has got to be close to hatching or overdue -- probably have to take her eggs away in the coming week. The other two geese are due to hatch around the 8th of May, and the fifth is due sometime in late May . . . after the first two nests look like they failed, I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much for goslings. THis was their first breeding season, so I wasn't really expecting much anyway. Going to work on getting better nesting houses, and keeping track of the most recent eggs as much as possible next year -- think part of the issue was the geese had too many eggs . . .