[Womble]

We inherited three geriatric geese with our smallholding, and eventually replaced them with some younger models bought as day-olds.




The idea was that we’d keep a breeding trio or so all year, which would then hatch and raise their own goslings in the spring, who would then go in the freezer at the beginning of winter as a nice sustainable source of meat. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out like that as they never managed to hatch any naturally, and we had similar dismal success rates in the incubator (1 out of 12 hatched on average).



We currently have just two geese – a terribly expensive Brecon Buff, who laid about two eggs this year, and the one surviving white gosling from this year’s hatch (sex unknown, but I suspect female). They live in an open-bottomed goose tractor thingy, which we move to fresh grass each day, so they’re no hassle to keep (the pic below is Mk1. Mk2 is a GRP 'truckman' top fitted with wheels, so is even easier). However, with the current bird flu restrictions, I’m seriously thinking of eating both of them and starting again in the Spring. The question is, is that going to be worthwhile? I haven’t found anybody who’s interested in buying goose eggs, and if we can’t find a reliable way to hatch them, what’s the point?



I’d love to hear from anybody who’s made a setup like this work. Please can somebody tell us what we’re doing wrong?

[TracyC]

Hiya there, do they have a water supply to bathe in? 

[Womble]

Yes, they have a shower tray that gets refreshed once or twice a day. Are you thinking about humidity for the eggs?

[Penninehillbilly]

Were they related?
I've hatched some in the past,  then bought some eggs a few years ago, hatched under a goose, great, 5/6, but they've never hatched anything. Natural or incubator.

[Womble]

Interesting. They were bought pre-sexed as commercial day-olds (12 girls and 2 boys IIRC), so I suppose they *could* have been related, though it seems unlikely that the boy we kept would have been closely related to all of the females. The fertility was always excellent, but they always seemed to die just before hatching (most pipped internally but didn't make it any further). I tried all sorts of things with humidity, but never quite found those 'goldilocks' conditions!

[lord flynn]

get a couple of muscovy hens to hatch them and use eggs laid slightly later in the season?

[Anke]

Yes our Pilgrim pair has turned out to be very expensive.... goosey girl laid a good number of eggs when 1yo, but all were infertile as boyo hadn't worked out the important bit... goosey then died that summer... we got another, most likely Brecon Buff type goosey with three of her offspring from someone else on TAS, we ate the youngsters and kept the girl in with the boy... they liked each other, and hey presto she laid a good number off eggs and we managed to hatch three in the incubator (out of 7), and a hen hatched another (and I managed to take it off before the hen killed it...) and then goosey hatched two herself (but both died a few weeks in, I think she wasn't that keen on her offspring after all...). We have just dispatched the 4 goslings, but weights were not that good - but these are Brecon Buff x Pilgrim, so were never going to be big.

Our problems with the incubator has also been the "dead in shell" just before hatching...

As we are not set up to deal with many more than 4 to 5 goslings per year I think we will do this pair another year and then I would like to try and get an Embden pair, just to get some size... A couple of Muscovies for broodies is also an idea, but we need to work on housing/runs etc for next year first.

Have you looked into getting day-olds, but I know they are difficult to come by. I have been on a farm tour at Andrew Whitley's place (www.breadmatters.com), and one of his current strategies of grazing management is having a flock of geese - bought in as eggs (as he needs them organic) and then hatched and reared organically as table birds for Xmas. He also has quite a few problems with hatching - and I understand that all breeds of geese are problematic wrt hatching...

I now run the incubator totally dry until lock-down, and then spray the eggs with warm water.

Not sure this helps much... we have found that the rearing is actually quite easy, but the hatching is the difficult part.

[Creagan]

The only person I know who has done geese on a reasonable scale (about two dozen birds) buys them in as day olds for about £8-£10 a head, I think her source was the famous Donald the Hen here on Skye, he gets them from somewhere further south.

We bought ours as two months olds, ready to go onto grass, at twice the price of day olds. It's a lot of money, especially when the fox takes one, but as first timers we felt it was worth it to reduce the risks.

[Womble]

Thanks everyone!  And Anke, your problems seem very similar to ours.


It's such a shame, as an easy to raise bird that turns grass into meat would be a perfect smallholding invention don't you think?

[Marches Farmer]

Has anyone tried putting goose eggs under a broody turkey to hatch?  In our experience they make the most careful and attentive of Mamas and have raised peacocks for us with 100% success (they're not modern commercial types, though).

[Womble]

No, but I did once let a broody peahen raise turkey chicks. It was successful up to the point at which Mum thought they should be able to fly by now, except they couldn't - "It's not my fault Mum, blame Bernard Matthews and forty years of selective breeding"   .

Using one species to hatch another is ok if you already have the broodies. Unfortunately we don't though, and I don't think the work or expense of keeping say muscovies in order to hatch out geese (which I'd also have to keep) is going to be worth it  .

At the moment I'm thinking of buying a big freezer, then raising geese, turkeys and hubbard chickens on a three year cycle, all bought in as day olds. OK, so the cost is higher on paper, but I dread to think what the real cost of a home raised goose is, with the way we've been doing it!

[pharnorth]

My bird happenings are much as described as above. Our neighbours years ago kept geese only a few feet from the back door. I rather enjoyed the terrorising noise they made every time I opened the door.  Our reward was a goose egg once in a while, usually made a silly large fried egg to scare any guests.

But to the point....  Personally I don't think the small incubators are good enough to withstand environmental fluctuations in temp or humidity occasionally I've got it right but usually later in the year when the RH is lower, Easter chicks just don't  make it the air is too damp. So I've given up on small incubators and only use broody hens.  Typically for my Indian runner ducks rather than geese though. A decent broody is usually a good layer too so should be cost effective, or a nice retirement home for one still broody but not laying. But for a chicken to sit on geese eggs- maybe a couple at a time I guess!

[landroverroy]

 Love your photos Womble!
 On reading through all the posts   it seems fairly obvious where you're all going wrong in your quest for the optimum hatching conditions for goose eggs.
 Basically you're asking the wrong people
 Surely the ones you should be asking for advice are the ones from whom you all buy your day olds when you have failed to hatch your own! They must be doing something right
 Then Womble, having discovered the secret to success, you should be able to make some sort of profit by selling day olds to those who have not yet cracked the hatching problem.

[adamhfc]

I have never really had problems hatching geese eggs in smaller incubators I do spray the eggs lightly every day tho

[Bramham Wiltshire Horns]

here here landrover