The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: harry on September 22, 2019, 05:07:37 pm
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I have acquired an established breeding pair of ebdens, possibly 3 years old, how many hatches could i expect next year, also is it good to intruduce another female, would that work.
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What do you mean how many hatched can you expect??
Normally it's one hatch per one pair per year. Obviously you can put some eggs under a muscovy or a hen or incubator.
They lay every other day from March (sometimes february) to June.
Normally geese are monogamous. Some will mate with another female and some won't.
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Do you mean how many eggs will you get or how many batches will the goose lay and incubate herself?
I would expect her to lay every other, or an egg every three days, from late feb, till june (ish). So probably 30-40 eggs a season. If you let her sit than thats the end of her egg laying for the year. I would be inclined to incubate them in an incubator myself, some geese are terrible mothers.
If you introduce a new goose you'll get more eggs but I have had issues with egg pinching when one goose is sitting on eggs and another goose wants to lay an egg. They will literally roll eggs from under the other goose, so you end up with the batch split between 2 nests and with them getting cold and dying.
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Thanks I meant how many broods. Was hoping for 2 but looks like 1. Seems to much agro to get another goose, not really interested in eggs to much just meat birds. Could always get another pair and fence them off i suppose. How many eggs per brood is likely.
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Thanks I meant how many broods. Was hoping for 2 but looks like 1. Seems to much agro to get another goose, not really interested in eggs to much just meat birds. Could always get another pair and fence them off i suppose. How many eggs per brood is likely.
My experience with letting geese sit isn't good.. Some geese just won't sit on eggs at all. Those that will sit on around 10 eggs and my experience is that only half of those will hatch and you'll probably loose a couple of goslings in the first couple of days.. It could be that my geese are useless parents, but I get much better results incubating the eggs and rearing under a lamp