Lack of Fertility, or Maybe Lack of Action

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

We currently have six Sebastopol geese in our active flock. i know one is a boy, Lee. i know four definitely are girls. Then we have Baby Huey who is a double-size goose. When my friend came and sexed our geese last year, we didn't even bother to sex him as he seemed so obviously a boy. Although now, i have seen him/her on the nest every other day acting like he/she is laying an egg. But i never have the patience to stand and wait to see if one actually comes out.

So earlier in the season, i saw Lee mating with some of the other geese. But now he seems to have bonded with just one, Ariel, who is broody and sitting on the nest. So he's not mating with her, since she is nesting, and i haven't seem him mate with anyone else, although i'm not out there all the time.

i've given my friend approximately 50 eggs to incubate and none are fertile. i currently have almost 50 in incubators on day 7 and 10 and nothing so far. i'm wondering if it's just that they are still young. Lee will be two next month, and the girls will be one-year-old. It's also very loud out there all day and night, as the girls fight over sitting on the nest to lay their eggs, and Lee tries to bite everyone but Ariel away from the nest. And Ariel makes the loudest, most obnoxious noise when anyone gets near. My husband wants me to rehome her because she is so annoying.

So, i don't know. First goose breeding season for us here and it's not going so well.

 

[RURU]

First off am I understanding right that you have 6 sebastopols. If you only have one male for all those girls it is too much for him to tend to all of them. The gander can handle 2 females but some ganders only like one female.

Eveen if it is their first year for breeding they should do OK. My question is how did you feed them through the winter. By that I mean how much protien in the feed. During the winter you have to back down on the protien levels to 15-16%. Also did you feed a lot of corn during the winter? If so that is not good because all it does is make fat around the breeding organs and it makes for a very poor breeding season.
Just ask me because I feed 18% protien level through the winter the year before and out of 85-90 eggs only 1 gosling hatched. The rest would die early in shell or not make it to the hatching process.
So this past winter brought it down to 15% and I am having much better luck with fertility this Spring.

Hope this helps you some.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i must have one of those ganders that only likes one female, as he's very mean to anyone else who wants to lay an egg in that nest. So, if i got another gander, i wonder if our current set-up would work, or if i would need to build another shed.

Anyhow, as far as feed goes, everyone gets Flockraiser (which is 20% protein) but i cut their feed 50/50 with rolled oats. i also give them cut-up apples and romaine lettuce every day, as they have mowed down all our grass. i also notice they eat some of the goat's Orchard Grass hay. What do you feed your geese?

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

during breeding season you WILL need to split your ganders up with the girls you want them with or face gander fights daily. Gander fights can lead to injury and or death if it gets bad enough.

 

[Ash-Rose Farms]

the trio that i have i kinda have the same problum due that i brought in a new goose last fall (was just a pair to start with) so the gander had "bonded" with the original goose and chases the new goose away and honks back to "his girl" but the few eggs from the newbie seem to be growing, only day five so still hard to tell. but from what i heard one gander can handle only three ladys

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

with sebastopols if you have 3 geese and 1 gander your fertility can be reduced. They do best as trios 1 gander 2 geese

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Well, we rehomed Ariel, our super loud broody goose, to a very good home. Aside from being loud, she came after me in the yard, like she was going to bite me. i have fragile skin and on blood thinners, so can't risk injury. So now we only have one gander (for sure), three girls, and one giant goose of yet undetermined sex (not counting our goose that lives in the house). Egg laying has stopped, so i guess we will see what happens next year. i do think i need to reconfigure things so we have a separate pen and house for whomever goes broody next year.