okay.... this is getting ridiculous!! UPDATE!

[austinhart123]

my female sebbieXebdem has 23 eggs in her nest and still has not gone broody yet!!!..... shes laid a total of 29 ( i incubated the first six...... this nest has taken her 7 weeks to lay and many of her eggs are well over a month old.... will she ever go boody or is she just a lost cuase?

 

[austinhart123]

adding: she sets about half the day and sleeps on the nest but is not brooding like a broody goose does!

 

[BellLisamo]

well maybe you should send 1/2 the eggs to me, i make a good broody....

sorry to hear, maybe shes trying to get the hang of it.....

 

[austinhart123]

well... this is only her 1st spring...... when she sits she only covers 1/2 the eggs

 

[shelleyd2008]

You should just take them away. I believe I have read that geese don't normally brood their first season. If she has been sleeping on the eggs, most likely there are some that have started developing and died. You may be able to salvage some of them. Try swapping the eggs out with a ball of some sort, to see if she will go broody. Store the eggs for up to 2 weeks, and if she hasn't gone broody, then set the eggs in the bator. If she does you can always give them back.

 

[Lynn]

One of our Muscovy hinnies, Nancy, did the same thing her first attempt... she sat half the day or just at night. Once they start, they have to keep at it, not "part-time" it. Anyway, after a few weeks, she figured out something was wrong and ended up abandoning that one and started a new one in a different spot. This time, she seemed to have figured out the error of her ways, and she stuck with it (fortunately, she chose a place right in the chicken coop. Her first one was in one of our window boxes).

Meanwhile, the other one (Hazel) was doing it right and hatched out her brood, and, at a week old, she moved the babies into the coop (she had selected a nesting spot on the side of a cliff--worried us to death)...

Hazel began leaving her ducklings in the coop with Nancy to go off for longer and longer outings. They liked snuggling up with Nancy while she sat on her nest. One day, after Nancy had been sitting dedicatedly for over three weeks (only a week and a half to go), she went to take her break, and all the ducklings followed her outside, being big enough now to jump out the doorway... something clicked in her, as if she thought these were her hatchlings! She chased Hazel away, and took over their care and never went back to her eggs. ...By the end of the day, they both ended up mothering them, but, Nancy's eggs were lost once again. Nancy has yet to successfully hatch her own eggs (but she doesn't know that)!

Side Note: something I noticed with our muscovies. When they first started laying, I was collecting their eggs (it was January, and I didn't think they would go broody, nor did I want them to). I noticed though that once I picked up the eggs, they would not return to that spot to lay, but would find a new one. Had I known that, I would not have picked up the ones they laid in the chicken coop, as I think this is what prompted Hazel to start laying outside. Hazel made her nest where I couldn't get them, and hatched out 16 the last week of February! The poor thing sat on them day and night from the end of January all through February.

Lynn

 

[DuckLady]

Geese will go broody when the urge strikes. It doesn't matter the number of eggs in the nest. That is not what triggers them. It is all hormonal.

 

[austinhart123]

Quote:
should i take her nest away and make a place for her to nest thats not their coop so she wont sleeep on them? and once she starts laying, put the fresher eggs in her nest with her and see if she broods?

 

[austinhart123]

okay i took all the eggs and candled..... 13 were good and the rest were rotton. i took 2 eggs and am gunna try putting them under a broody since i am gunna have millions of chicks in the next few weeks, i thought my next broody that sets, i have 3 that are borderline right now, will hatch goslings

 

[shelleyd2008]

Good luck!