I remember some gunk with mine but it was always dried up and stuck on to whatever remained of the shells, I figured it was left over membrane . My geese have always done an excellent job of brooding and hatching and I’ve NEVER had to take over so this is an all new experience!
Geese are so much easier than ducks!
With my ducks I’ve never gotten to the point of incubation because I had my pekins for years who had zero desire to brood and I never bothered to try. Now that I have my welsh, buff, and cayuga, Bee “the welsh” went broody and I decided to let her try.
Her own eggs were infertile, she then brooded Moon’s “the Cayuga.” Bee would do fine with them for a week, then for unknown reasons smash some of them or throw them out. she did this for awhile but I didn’t want to interfere, just letting nature do its thing.
She stopped breaking them and got two to 21ish days at which point she threw one out of the nest for the night and the other she punctured through to the yolk sack probably stomping it like she did the others. The first died, the second died a few days later, probably from infection. I had taken it, patched up the hole, but it didn’t make it.
She started incubating three more of Moon’s eggs. Bee seemed to have wisened up and this round didn’t make any mistakes or try to crush them like before so I let her do her thing. One was a dud, the other made it to hatching. He was buff colored and pipped, zipped, and was just pushing out of the egg. Bee was protective and gentle so I didn’t think she’d do something stupid. I left him with Bee for 2 minutes unattended which was a mistake. She decided after all the time she spent incubating him to go full psycho and smash the egg he was pushing out of and she stomped and smothered him with her foot.
The last egg was a week behind, I took it and I’ve been “mom” since, which hasn’t been easy because this has been a week long crash course in incubating.
