[Pinecooler]

I have a pair of Emden Geese that have started to do what geese do in spring.


The goose now has a clutch of about 11 eggs.


In the evening she sits nicely on them with teh gander hanging around outside standing gaurd.


However every day without fail she covers up the clutch with straw and leaves the nest for the whole day before returning againa ta night.


Having never dealt with Geese before I'm curious as to whether or not this will actually lead to a successful brood.


Has she damaged the eggs with her partial sitting? Should I just leave her to do whatever shes doing or should I discard this group of eggs and try to take any new ones to an incubator?


any help/advice appreciated.


Chris

[devonlady]

Leave her to it, she knows what she's about!

[devonlady]

Make sure she's safe from predators!

[hughesy]

When she's ready she'll sit tight. We find ours don't want to sit until closer to the end of april but I do keep taking their eggs away so maybe I'm confusing the issue.

[billy_wiz]

Pinecooler

We are in the same situation, we have a pair of Emden geese exactly the same she will sit on then at night and at daytime just get on with everyday life.......clutch of 11 eggs.

We have decided to wait and see what she does, hopefully will sit on the eggs in the daytime, however with eggs getting warm in the night and cold in the day we don't expect they will hatch out, hope we are wrong though.

Keep in touch and let me know what happens with your two Emden's.

Best regards 

[steve_pr]

Identical behaviour with our Brecon Buff pair.  She laid one every couple of days, carefully covered them up with straw and then went off to graze for the day.  Finally she ended up with 10 or 11and she is now sitting almost continuously night and day (and well snuggled down into the huge mound of straw she used to create the next.  I would imaging it is pretty toasty under that living duvet!  Gander is outside and pretty calm now - after going through a short spell (just before she started sitting) of unprovoked and very determined attacks whenever we were in the garden.


How long should they take to hatch? assuming we are lucky enough?  They seem to know what they are doing, but I'm a little hazy!

[Pinecooler]

So latest update for anyone interested.


Shes still not sitting tight but she seems to be continuing laying, I counted 24 at the weekend. As I dont imagine she'd manage to incubate that many I took away 6 of the oldest looking eggs.


Hopefully she'll begin to sit soon.

[Steph Hen]

I would have thought that partial sitting would fail the eggs?
They'd start to develop and then chill and stop... I'd guess that an hour or so while mum lays another egg isn't enough to get them going, but if she's sitting on them all night, surely this would be long enough to start them developing away?

[adamhfc]

If you can mark eggs daily with a pencil with a number or letter  they sometimes don't sit till they lay a certain amount but if it's at 24 eggs best remove oldest 8 at least so best mark eggs

[billy_wiz]

Hi

Just a quick update on my pair of Emden geese, she had laid about 13 eggs and only infrequently sitting on them, so decided to remove the newer eggs, we now have a total of 9 new laid eggs that have been removed to a cool place, yesterday the goose starting sitting during the day.

So I removed the old eggs she is now sitting on 10 eggs of the newest eggs so hopfully the goose will continue for about a month.

[Womble]

How long should they take to hatch?

Our last lot in the incubator didn't pip until 35 days. I believe it's usually 28 to 32.

[Anke]

How long should they take to hatch?

Our last lot in the incubator didn't pip until 35 days. I believe it's usually 28 to 32.

Just hatched one under a broody hen - day 29. In the incubator they took a bit longer, hatched day 31.