Let's have a gosling hatchalong!

[ChristineR]

The buff girl did not make it.  The remaining African looks like it will hatch out ok..... eventually. The grey boy is still not out of the woods, but continues to drain fluid from nares and build strength. 

Oh, so sorry!

 

[RURU]

Everyone I would like to introduce you to Gloria and Lance grey saddleback sebastopol goslings. There is also a Hanna and Nikki gosling in with them a Blue Saddleback sebbie.

The two towards the back are from Gloria our first goslings I have ever got from her..... The one standing up front is the Hanna and Nikki Blue SB. All this hatch from two different momma's and all saddlebacks.....

 

[DaisyMeadow]

Yay, RURU,

Beautiful babies!

 

[RURU]

Thank you DM, I was not sure if the darkest one was going to make it. Very long time hatching. I had to help a little at a time. Very listless and not alert at all. So worked from yesterday and all throught the night on peeling the shell off a little at a time so the veins would not bleed out on me to much. This one I still am not sure will make it. I sure hope so though!!!!

The two were not doing very well in the incubator even the 2nd one had lots of trouble breaking through the tough egg shell of Gloria's.....
So had to also help that one out a bit at a time. Finally after dinner I grabbed them out of the incubator got a towel and made a nest on my bed crawled in with them got a handy hair dryer and put that on them just on warm and monitored it and you should see how well they started pulling out of the birthing funck. Everytime I use a hair dry on goslings, ducks when I had them and peacocks it always worked wonderful.
Thank goodness for hair dryer with 3 speeds!!!!!

 

[pete55]

RURU - Great news - how are they all doing? So that's both of Gloria's eggs hatched now and so pleased they're both SB as they should be females. BIG CONGRATULATIONS.

IAIN - Oh no, so sorry to hear about the Buff not making it. You did say she was quite weak

Have you anymore eggs from the pair that are producing them?



We too are having a poor year so it happens to us all

We've just lost 2 out of the 3 Dewlap eggs. The last one has been externally pipped for 24 hours and has started peeping so that's a good sign. Also managed 15% weight loss. Hoping it might be a Buff. Lost a Grey yesterday that didn't internally pip and very swollen and only 12% weight loss. Then just lost another Grey this morning. It had lost 13% but internally pipped 36 hours ago and externally pipped 12 hours ago. However no peeping. Just watched it enlarge the pip (high up on the egg) until a hole and could see it was a Grey. After half hour I checked and thought it odd that I could see no movement in the beak. When I checked it had died but was a very large gosling with a distorted head due to its size -

Also had our best Buff female paired to a split and she's never bothered laying and tried with another gander and neither showed any interest in her. One has since being paired with a Grey and is bonded and mating her. In fact she just looked rejected. Meanwhile our old Gander has never been seen mating his new young female although bonded. In frustration I removed the young female and replaced her with the older Buff. Did that 3 days ago and instant pair bonding, female looked brighter and knew she was back in her old pen with her old mate from last year. This morning they're both mating and I'll bet they produce some fertile eggs despite being so late in the year. I nice note to end on and it just shows the importance of pairing the right birds up. It also shows that the female failed to come into breeding condition until back with her mate. They both look so content and brighter again - I was a fool to split them up but wanted to use the female to breed more Buffs. Quality over quantity (or colour)

 

[RURU]

Pete thank you so much for your guidance on the hatching of the Gloria eggs!!! It was the darkest one I had the most trouble with. Just externally piped the egg and peep peeped and just laid there. I do have to say the egg shell was super hard and I believe the little ones had a hard time getting it open. Even the membrane was tough! So I had to help them both out of the eggs. I can not sleep right now because I am keeping an eye on the little darlings... Had 4 eggs in the incubator and 3 of 4 hatched.... Pete with your guide I keep going back to study more on what to do to help in the incubation. Thank you and Rob for such a WONDERFUL Guide to incubation it has given me so much hope and help how to do hatching right!!!

I would not have these grey saddleback babies if it had not been for your guidance.

Gosh Pete sounds like you are having a time with the dewlap eggs... So very sorry to hear this. Here we are the breeders who want to pick and put together what we think will be a better breeding and the geese know better who they like and want to mate with! I have seen it in their eyes and actions if a gander likes a certain female he will go fight for her attentions. The female will also follow the gander around if she likes him.. Now we have to figure out how to make the female like the gander we want them with. I sit down and think about this that females of any species will pick the males who is the strongest and will give her strongest offspring the best chances.
I will pray for your dewlaps to start doing better and hatching alive.

Pete are you putting any water in you incubators? I am not putting any in unless it get just too low on humidity.
P.S. The pictures are beautiful of you two dewlaps there...

 

[pips&peeps]

I am up too, still working on my gosling. It is still working on that yolk sac. It seemed to be very sleepy today and has woken up a bit now and is peeping quite a bit.

 

[Iain Utah]

Ruru, congrats! They are beautiful!!

Pips, good luck with your new hatchlings!!

Pete, it was such rotten luck to lose the buff girl, especially after hatching out 5 boys.... but I have 8 more eggs from my trio developing, I set 4 more last night and my girls are still laying. The next pair go into lockdown this weekend. In brighter news, the hard hatch grey boy is still with us and we may be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. He is eating, drinking well, and pooping normal. He keeps trying to run around but lacks coordination and strength in his legs and falls over and rolls onto his back. But, he appears to be slowly getting his legs under him and gaining better balance. He also doesn't appear as swollen this morning. The last baby (African) just hatched out, is still in the bator, but looks pretty weak. Hopefully it too will gain strength over the day. I don't want to move it out of bator too soon, but I'm so looking forward to cleaning the bator before moving the next eggs over as it smells rank!

Very sorry about your rough hatch, too. What is it about dewlaps that makes it so hard for them to lost enough moisture? My bator is running between 16-22% and I still had eggs in this last hatch that didn't lose enough. I also tried pairing certain geese for color/quality.... but gave up on most as they really seemed to have their own strong feelings about who they wanted to pair up with. Frankly I got lucky that my buff gander is mating with my two best grey girls, as he only had eyes for one of my buff yearling girls when season started. On the other hand, my nicest grey gander is mated to a non-breeder (blind girl) and I simply do not have the heart to break them up so I can breed him. But I figure I can make him extra fat and show him this fall.

It is a balancing act trying to accomplish our breeding goals, but keeping our birds' well-being (physically and mentally) as the first and foremost priority.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Pete thank you so much for your guidance on the hatching of the Gloria eggs!!! It was the darkest one I had the most trouble with. Just externally piped the egg and peep peeped and just laid there. I do have to say the egg shell was super hard and I believe the little ones had a hard time getting it open. Even the membrane was tough! So I had to help them both out of the eggs. I can not sleep right now because I am keeping an eye on the little darlings... Had 4 eggs in the incubator and 3 of 4 hatched.... Pete with your guide I keep going back to study more on what to do to help in the incubation. Thank you and Rob for such a WONDERFUL Guide to incubation it has given me so much hope and help how to do hatching right!!!

I would not have these grey saddleback babies if it had not been for you guidance.

Gosh Pete sounds like you are having a time with the dewlap eggs... So very sorry to hear this. Here we are the breeders who want to pick and put together what we think will be a better breeding and the geese know better who they like and want to mate with! I have seen it in their eyes and actions if a gander likes a certain female he will go fight for her attentions. The female will also follow the gander around if she likes him.. Now we have to figure out how to make the female like the gander we want them with. I sit down and think about this that females of any species will pick the males who is the strongest and will give her strongest offspring the best chances.
I will pray for your dewlaps to start doing better and hatching alive.

Pete are you putting any water in you incubators? I am not putting any in unless it get just too low on humidity.
P.S. The pictures are beautiful of you two dewlaps there...

RURU congrats on your precious babies.. I know your relieved..

 

[pete55]

Iain

Just so you know your not the only one - I've just lost the 3rd Dewlap although it was another Grey also lost 2 others at 19days from another female despite running in dry incubators.

The Dewlaps were all swollen with large heads and did get the last one partially out but only lived for about an hour. I'm afraid its a combination of factors with the Dewlaps but mainly the egg size and vigour of the goslings. The larger eggs having less surface area of eggshell to mass/volume of the egg contents.

However I've switched off the cooling feature of the new incubator and will revert to my original regime of shorter cooling periods. I do hope I haven't been swayed by the hype of the new incubator. Mt partner Rob is annoyed that we changed an incubation regime that we refined over the years

On the plus side the old pair of the Champion Grey and Buff female do make a handsome pair and it would be nice to have youngsters from them

Best of luck with the young Dewlap but does sound like he is progressing