Goose Eggs

I am very keen to have company for Goose, so I contacted the man who kindly gave me her egg two years ago, and asked if I could buy some more. He lives near Sheffield. I looked online, to try and find someone nearer, but I am keen to have more Sebastopol geese. No one local was advertising eggs. (Eggs through the post is always a bit unreliable.)

We had been home from the US for one day. One frantic day of unpacking and washing laundry and sorting animals. Then we drove to Sheffield, planning to collect the eggs, sleep in an Airbnb, drive home. The timing was terrible! I was exhausted, but there was no way to delay (if I wait too long after the eggs are laid, they are unlikely to hatch. These eggs were already 2 weeks old.)

In terms of bird-timing, it was perfect. Goose has laid 4 eggs of her own, and is making a nest. I was very hopeful that adding a few more would be enough to make her grow broody. As she’s an inexperienced mother (some birds get bored after a couple of weeks and abandon perfectly viable eggs) I also put 4 in the incubator. I gave her a child’s paddling pool full of water, so she can wet her feathers regularly.

I decided to also try a different breed of goose, so I ordered two Emdon goose eggs from Ebay. I also decided to order some more Orpington chicken eggs, as company for Maverick (my hens are old now and have stopped laying). They were all ordered on the Thursday, I hoped if they were posted on Friday, they would arrive Saturday and they could all go into the incubator together. Such a great plan. None of it worked very well…

Monday, Day 1: Eggs had rested for 24 hours, so I washed them and added to incubator.[1] Ebay eggs not arrived. I put 4 fertile eggs into Goose nest, and scribbled on her infertile 4 with a pencil. Left eggs to warm for 24 hours.

Tuesday, Day 2: After 24 hours of warmth, I started to turn the incubator eggs, 3 times per day. Ebay eggs not arrived. Goose seems to be sitting on her nest.

Wednesday, Day 3: Continued to turn incubator eggs. Ebay eggs still not arrived. (Contacted the seller, who said he sent them via Evri the next day. Evri are useless in my experience, so I am worried.) Goose seems to be sitting on her nest, coming off to eat and stand in the paddling pool.

Thursday, Day 4: Continued to turn incubator eggs. Ebay eggs still not arrived. Goose nest a disaster! When I went today, she got off the nest and I could see signs of egg-eating. There are 5 remaining eggs.

I have no idea whether Goose ate the eggs I bought because she knew they weren’t her own, or if a rat got them, or if they were bad (hens will eat bad eggs to stop the nest being ruined). I could not see my pencil marks on any eggs at all. After much debate with Husband (who has a stake in this after driving all the way to Sheffield and back) I decided to remove 3 eggs from the nest and add them to the incubator. They were filthy, so I washed them—which at this stage may have killed them if they have been developing for 3 days but I worried about adding so much dirt to the incubator. I have no idea how many days they have been developing, if at all, so they might be behind the other eggs, or they might be the same as the other eggs, or they might be the infertile eggs that Goose laid. Not great.

Friday, we had a power cut. Big worry! I immediately started to think about whether I could move the incubator to a family home where they had power—but realised that moving the eggs at this stage would kill them. So would getting cold. I thought I probably had about an hour before they grew too cool (I immediately covered the incubator in towels). Husband then suggested it might work on a back-up battery he has for our alarm. I plugged it in, the incubator whirred back to life. Phew! (The power came back after about 30 minutes, but that wasn’t something predicable.) If these eggs hatch, I feel it will be a miracle, there are so many problems.

Saturday, Day 6: I filled the water reservoir in the incubator and noticed water leaking from the other side. Great, it has sprung a leak. The humidity inside was dropping. I added an egg cup of warm water, the humidity rose. But this will only work for a while. Long discussion with Husband. We decided that the incubator is about 15 years old, and has hatched many batches of eggs, maybe it’s time to replace it. We looked online.

There are hundreds of incubators to choose from, with varying reviews and very varied prices. My one is still sold, and is about 4x the price of most others. But it works really well, and regulates the humidity (when not broken) as well as the temperature and turning of the eggs. We decided that it was worth investing in the same one. Deep breath. Ordered it.

Day 7: I shone a light through the eggs. It’s a bit early, but I am impatient. It looks as if the 4 eggs I put straight into the incubator are all fertile. One of the eggs I rescued might be fertile, but the other two look as if they are not.

I really hope the one is, because that means Goose did not eat all the fertile eggs, and potentially might still be sitting on fertile eggs. She is, as far as I can see, sitting on two eggs now. Her eggs seem to be a little delayed, which would make sense if she didn’t actively sit on the nest for a day or two after I added the eggs. She’s very diligent, sits on her nest most of the time, coming off to wash and eat. It’s hard to keep her water clean because she adds lots of mud to it—plus of course there are the two ducks I shut in the cage.

Ducks are fun but terrible. They turn everything into mud soup. They are laying, and have made nests, but no sign of sitting. They are probably hoping another bird will come and sit for them. They race around the cage, digging up the mud with their beaks, splashing in any available water. Very messy. When they go near Goose she hisses at them, so they have stopped running into her nest (which they first did). I’m really hoping they sit soon, or I shall have to release them back onto the pond.

The Ebay eggs never arrived. Evri is hopeless. I informed the sellers—one is being helpful, the other one is being obstinate. I want him to refund my money, or I shall leave a terrible review. I have ordered 2 more batches of Buff Orpington eggs, which I might put into the old incubator as it’s still working (the new one arrived today). They should all hatch about the same time, which will mean two weeks of lots of work, but then they will all be independent by May, if it goes to plan.

Day 10

I candled the eggs. It’s really hard to see inside because the shells are so thick. I do it at night, when it’s dark, and shine a very bright light through them. I think 3 are definitely fertile, 2 were not so I took them out. The rest I am not sure about. They look too dark to be unfertilised, but they are not as developed as the others—but they are the ones rescued from Goose, so maybe she didn’t sit consistently until a few days later. Ot they might be her infertile ones. I don’t want to risk throwing away a goose, so I will wait a couple more days. If they are not clearly developing (they should stop moving and appear as a solid dark lump) then I will take them out. The danger of leaving infertile eggs is they may go bad, and the fumes will kill the other eggs. I hate making these decisions because it’s so awful to get it wrong and kill something by mistake.

In the garden, Goose is firmly sitting on her two remaining eggs (which I fear may be infertile ones she laid). She has plucked out her breast feathers, and lined the nest with soft down. When she leaves the nest to eat and drink she makes a big fuss of covering the nest with hay, so it can’t be seen. One of the ducks is also nesting. The other duck was being disruptive, so I have put her back on the pond.

I need to decide when/if my incubator eggs hatch, whether to give them to Goose to raise. She is broody, so might raise them (which is the best scenario) but given that she ate the other eggs, I’m worried she might kill the hatchlings. I’m not sure I trust her now.

To add to the chaos, one of the ducks appeared on the pond with ducklings. Ducklings on the pond have never survived to adulthood–the crows and magpies eat them. I left her with 4, and took 4 into the garage where they will be safe. (To date, she has 3 left, so is doing better than expected.)

I hope your days are less chaotic. Thanks for reading.
Take care.
Love, Anne x

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[1] There is much discussion online as to whether you should wash eggs before incubating them. I decided that the very dirty ones should be washed and added straight away. Washing them removes their protective coating, but dirt adds bacteria to the incubator. If you wash them in water warmer than the egg, it stops the bacteria entering the egg through osmosis (apparently).