- Dec 4, 2008
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I have some goose eggs incubating. They internally pipped and then nothing else for 24hrs so I added a safety hole. I candled to make sure the gosling wasn't near where I was making the hole. All seemed well, raised the humidity to 65-70% and waited. 12 hours passed and the shell membrane (the safety hole) in the one egg had closed. Prior to that I could see it moving slightly. Now it was pressed tightly against the shell, so I decided to pull the egg and candle. Air cell was completely gone and no noise or movement from the gosling. I decided to assist. Slowly opened the safety hole a little more and just saw feathers. Realized gosling was either dead or so malpositioned it couldn't move at all. Picked away the shell over the original air cell. Gosling had moved all the way in to the air cell and his back was against the safety hole. His beak was on the other side of the egg, outside of the air cell, and between his webbed feet. Guessing this was a malpositioned gosling who rotated and suffocated? Egg membrane was still moist but no blood. Yolk sack was almost completely absorbed. The other eggs still look good on candling and I can still hear them chirping, so I'm leaving them alone. I did quickly candle them all after I saw the one was in trouble. Question: is there anything I could have done to prevent this? I hate that he got so far and then died. The position he was in there is no way he'd have been able to externally pip or zip. His beak and head were pretty tightly tucked behind his legs and feet. Just looking for education on preventing this from happening again, if that is possible.
