Someone wants to incubate my goose eggs

[Shiloh Acres]

LOL!

Thanks everyone for the input.

I DO want an incubator. I was supposed to be able to borrow one, but it hasn't happened yet. I want most of my eggs to be under broodies, but even my chickens aren't keeping up with what I want to be able to set. So as soon as I can, I guess I'm going to need an incubator. Financially, I can't really manage it right now, and actually, I haven't found any on CL. I will see if there's an ag guy around who might do it tho.

I have a good many eggs, and some I'm afraid will be too old soon. As one poster said, if they don't get incubated at all, they won't hatch anyway. So I went ahead and sent over a dozen with full instructions on the differences. He has a very large bator and put the goose eggs on their own shelf. He's also currently hatching quail and chicks (I sent him a couple dozen chicken eggs too).

We'll just see what happens.

I hadn't thought about disease being an issue from an incubator, though obviously if they house thx hatchlings for you ...

I'm very concerned about bringing in outside birds. I used to think that hatchlings were ok but I've heard of hatchery chicks potentially introducing disease. Hmmmm ...

I guess it comes down to really trusting your sources. I still want turkeys and ducks, at the very least. My goose flock is well on it's way to being self-perpetuating, and my chickens maybe too. My guineas are female-only but I haven't decided that I'm going to continue with them. Ducks and turkeys I want though, and have zero right now.

 

[adrian]

It definitely does come down to trusting your sources. Diseases and infections, from what I understand, can be passed from the bird to the egg, and through the egg to the baby. Then, they can pass it to one another, and the more babies there are, the more likely disease and infection is. However, it's less of a problem, because disease and infection often prevents eggs from hatching, and if they do hatch, generally they are too weak to survive. However... I have heard of it being a problem so I imagine there must be some risk involved. I would, at the very least, quarantine the goslings when you get them back, and just make sure they seem to be doing well before introducing them to other birds.

 

[arherp]

I have hatched my goose eggs with chickens and gotten 100% hatch rates on both.. You do need a little higher humidity, but that won't bother the chickens. If they are all set at the same time the chicks with hatch out about a week sooner, but that doesn't bother anything either.

Also, I have seen incubator services charge up to 75% of a hatch... consider yourself lucky to have that resource! I wouldn't take them to him unless he knows what he is doing though, there is definately a "trick" to hatching geese.