[JFW67]

I have had Geese for a few years.  The primary purpose is keeping grass down in a very wet field.  They do an excellent job when there are enough of them.

The first few years I got birds each spring from a local guy who kept them as a hobby.  However, (mainly because the gander bit him on the backside when he was collecting eggs!) he sold me the breeding pair and I have had problems ever since (not with being bitten  ) Foxes have scoffed a few each year and I have had little luck with rearing.  Essentially the parenting skills of the geese seem horrific.  Every clutch ends up with a few crushed eggs with goslings at hatching point and the few that make it out alive often end up the same way.  The first week seems to be the problem phase.

Sadly the pair died this last year or no good or obvious reason.  Within a couple of months of each other they just rapidly lost condition and died.  A little rough calculation had them both at least somewhere their mid teens.  I am aware geese can live longer but these seems to have a fair run.

I have replaced them with another breeding trio but today, hatching day, found the mother sitting on one gosling with four others both in and out of the shell dead.  Three eggs yet to hatch.  Fertility is not an issue . .  Parenting is!

I have another bird sitting on 8 eggs due to hatch on Tuesday.

Does anyone have any advice on getting the birds out of the shell and past the first few days?

 

[Fleecewife]

Do your geese have access to a batheing pond or large dog bath or similar?  Our geese (Shetlands) are very careful to keep their feathers washed every day, or twice a day, when sitting, so the eggs are brooded in a humid enough atmosphere.  The only year we have let them breed, the goose raised 9 out of 10 eggs, and reared them most solicitously with her mate.  We haven't let them breed again because we don't have room for more than 4, and we hate killing them for the table.  Currently the older goose is sitting on an empty nest but even so she goes through the ritual of getting nice and wet before she returns to her nest. This is in spite of Shetland geese apparently having a reputation for being rubbish mothers.

[bj_cardiff]

I have a pair of Embden the same, she sits on a clutch and I candel them and take away the bad ones leaving good ones, they start to hatch and out of maybe 6 good eggs, two might make it, the others are crushed in the shells, dead.

I have found a dear rat in the goose pen so I think they may be attacking the eggs? I don't let them sit anymore and hatch in the incubator.

[JFW67]

Hi Fleecewife.
They are currently penned in an electrified enclosure on an open field.  Both sitters are in lean-too shelters and have access to a bath of water which they wash in daily.   They go back to the wet field which has a large pond once the hatching is done and the goslings are a week or tw9 old. 

The issue is the crushing smashing.   

Hi Bj.
No sign of rats or the like where they are currently.  I’ve room for a dozen or so of them but have struggled to get more than half a dozen between the annual loss to foxes and the poor breeding outcome.

[doganjo]

I think you should give up on the adults rearing them and hatch eggs in an incubator, try putting them back in with the adults when thy're a reasonable size maybe?  Would they accept them do you think?

[bj_cardiff]

Hi Bj.
No sign of rats or the like where they are currently.  I’ve room for a dozen or so of them but have struggled to get more than half a dozen between the annual loss to foxes and the poor breeding outcome.

Sorry i was unclear - I have found mangled rats in with the geese over the years, not fully grown ones, and sometimes mixed in with the straw and I may of missed them. I wonder if the geese detect movement in the shells and attack the eggs, like they have with the rats? Thats the only thig I can think of? The crushing seems to happen when the eggs are hatching

[JFW67]

thanks for the replies

I’ve no incubator so not an easy solution.

However, I had wondered about taking the eggs in the last couple of days and seeing if I could hatch them under light and then reintroduce them.  I wonder if bare bulb would have the heat the bring them out? 

The eggs are lasting until the last day or so and once the goslings are out of the shell and mobile they seem to survive. 

Like you say bj-Cardiff the problem is at the point of hatching.  I removed the dead goslings this morning.  For in total.  Three out of the shell but feathers still wet and the fourth the shell is was crushed around it.  Not sure where the fifth egg/ gosling went!  I said 8 in the first post but I had forgotten I had reduced the clutch size to increase the chances of success.   

The attacking issue seems bizarre but watching the behaviour this morning the gander actually is having a go at the one gosling from the first clutch that survived.  He has been ejected from the enclosure for now to give the new one peace.