Anybody know of any white geese or goslings for sale? I have 3 Brown Chinese, and they are not really doing it for me. I keep thinking they would make better lawn ornaments if they were white. I got them in January, and at this point I’m not enamored with them enough to keep them over another winter.
In the mean time, one of them was broody and sat on a clutch of goose and duck eggs for 33 days. One hatched out during all the rain we had this week and didn’t survive. I’m not sure whether it was a problem with the baby or the mother.
I think I gave her too many pine shavings. Because she kept shifting her nest from one area within the pile of shavings to another. Before I had replenished her shavings, she only had a small pile of mostly pine needles. And she just stayed put in one spot and pulled what she had close in to herself. So I think refreshing her bedding was a mistake.
Well so I candled on Monday and she had 4 good eggs, and 4 bad which I threw out. One good egg was pipped. By Thursday evening, that gosling had hatched and died. I candled yesterday, and all of the other 3 were alive and kicking, two of them internally pipped. But Agnes seemed to be getting restless and not staying on the nest much. There are also huge cracks across the front of one of the eggs that must have gotten there from her mishandling of them. So I put all 3 in my incubator in lockdown, and soon after, two of them pipped. (Including the cracked one)
But I don’t really want to brood goslings myself, so I tried to keep Agnes broody by putting golf balls and a ceramic egg in her nest. She did go back to sitting on those, but not real tight. I thought if I could get her some baby goslings, she could mother them, and then I could hopefully add these incubator ones, if they managed to hatch. But Craigslist is slim pickings for goslings right now, so I decided to try ducklings.
I found Khaki Campbells at TSC and bought 10 of them. I‘ve been giving them to her by twos, and she’s got 6 so far. I’m stopping there because I don’t want to lose my whole investment if she starves or tramples them. She does keep them close to her, and will lay down for them to cuddle up to her, but she doesn’t seem to get them actually under her. She is more intent on pacing back and forth and calling to the other two geese. I’m a little worried whether she will pay attention to the babies and make sure they eat and stay warm.
Wow, did not mean for this to be so long! Just wanted to tell my goose story, lol
Has this ever happened to any of you? I always collect my eggs daily and put them in a basket in the kitchen counter. I though a fertilized egg needs to be warm in order for the chick to develop?I do remember one time that I found a couple eggs hidden in the nest under the hay. Could it be possible that I missed that egg and with this hot weather and being under the hay could be enough heat for the baby chick to start developing? I am sooo traumatized now that I double check the nest thoroughly every day and also candle the eggs before selling them. Do I need to start refrigerating the eggs after collect them? I don't wash my eggs until sale day.
