I had six goslings hatch on April 9th-11th. There are two grays, two gray saddlebacks, and dilute gray and a buff female.
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This is the first hatch for me in two years. I am so excited!! I could not hatch last year because of our move.
These 8 goslings came from only 2 pens. From my Graycie/Neeko pen, I hatched out 1 buff female and 3 grays. All the solid grays, whether male or female, are split for saddleback. The four from this pen can be either curly or smooth breasted, since mom is a smooth breasted and dad is a curly. The four from my Amber/Helmut pen will be all curly. There are two gray saddlebacks and two dilute gray saddlebacks that should be males. I will be keeping the buff female and a gray saddleback female. The rest will be for sale. My first batch of eggs, Hatch A, is due to hatch in the coming week. 24 eggs were started but only 10 were fertile. Then I had some that stopped developing. Bummer! We shall see what happens!
Hatch B was started with 24 eggs and 10 were fertile. Also, it seems that fertility is not what it used to be. On my third batch, Hatch C, of the 19 eggs set, 4 were fertile. My assumption is that since they are in a new location and I am unable to have a pool of water in with them 24/7, that could be hindering fertility. They get access to a pool every third or fourth day. Also, some of my pairs are older now. On the incubating side of things, we had a major storm roll through and we had a power outage for 2 days. My husband had a hard time finding one of our generators that actually worked. It's always a gamble with incubating, but it still is fun! I started Hatch A on March 3, 2019 with 24 eggs. When candled on the 8th, only 12 were fertile. Hatch A should produce goslings around March 31st.
In a second incubator, I started Hatch B on March 10, 2019 with another 24 eggs. They should hatch around April 7th. On my son's birthday, this gray goose and gray saddleback gander gave me the first goose egg of the season. I am extremely excited about this pair. They are a new pairing and the female, Graycie, is a smooth breasted, solid gray goose, split for saddleback...yes, I said split for saddleback. Her mother, Caramel, apparently carries the autosomal spotting gene and all of her daughters are split for saddleback. I don't understand it, I just record my breedings. The male, Neeko, is a curly, gray saddleback split for buff. He has some nice chest curls that go up his neck and Graycie has the best feathering of all of my smooth breasted females. So I am excited to see the feathering on these babies. Yeah!!!
After some trial and error, I finally have the geese penned up in pairs that look to be working. No eggs yet, Getting excited for the breeding season to begin!
I took advantage of the nice weather last week and set up my pens inside my poultry barn. I'm still letting my geese out daily to free range within the fenced in area and putting them in their pens at night. I'm watching the pairs to make sure they are getting along. So far, there is only one pair that was not working out as planned. But to make it work, I have to rearrange about three pairs. Once I start seeing eggs, then they will be kept in for the duration of the breeding season.
These green tubes are goat pen panels that I use to separate my geese. Because the males can still fit a head through to "fence fight", I also set up puppy play yard fencing which helps stop fence fighting. Since this is the first time using this poultry barn and being inside, I decided to not set up their individual pen tubs of water. Instead, I'm going to try setting up the pool outside and since I have more panels yet, I will use the panels just outside of the barn and let out one pair at a time to enjoy some pool time. We shall see how that works out! Today I decided to set up my breeding pens. Since we are in a new location, I may have to adjust them, but time will tell. This is the first time in years that I will be able to put up my pens inside a barn. I'm thrilled about that. I'm using an existing 40'x40' barn that, I was told, used to house turkeys and chickens. My husband power washed it twice the year before we brought down the animals. The original owner visited and said he had never seen it so clean.
Eventually, we will build a poultry barn back where we will build the house, but for now, this works great. I use 8' and 4' goat panels to make my pens. These were much easier for me to move by myself. My first year I used 12' horse round pen panels. That was a bear to move. I only use my panels during breeding season. Once breeding season is over, I take the panels down and store them and the geese are able to free range in a fenced area once again. I like to set up my pens as 8'x8' squares, but being inside and having to work around posts, some of my squares are trapezoids. Also, I will have to do some 4'x8' pens to fit everyone. My 17 geese that we brought down are doing great. Actually, I have not lost any of my poultry since the move. I was so afraid that being in a new place and with lots of predators around I might lose some. However, our four dogs who share the same fenced area seem to help at keeping predators away. And the fact that I now can lock up my geese, ducks and chickens at night is a definite plus. I decided to pair up all of my 17 geese, thus needing 9 pens. The males all like having their own female. So I made my list of pairs, but I like to watch and see who is naturally pairing up with whom. So I did adjust my list a little. We shall see how it goes. Even though my pens are now set up, I left all the gates open so the geese can go in and out and get used to the new set up. I don't lock them in the pens until I see eggs being laid or a lot of breeding going on. I have seen neither so far, so I wait. That's fine with me because it is more work when they are penned up. Here's to hoping for a great 2019 breeding season!!! We finally moved all the animals down to Wilmington Ohio to our new farm. Now we need to build pretty much everything. However, my husband did put up some fencing for my poultry and there was an existing poultry barn that we are now using. So I am excited to be able to plan for my 2019 breeding season.
Currently, I have 17 adult geese for my breeding pens. I will keep you posted on my breeding plans. It seems like it is taking FOREVER for us to move from Hilliard Ohio to Wilmington Ohio. We had a set back when one of our horses, Tazer, that was moved to a boarding stable ended up getting Dew Poisoning (Scratches...a bad skin infection) on all four of his legs. Both my vet and farrier said it was the worst case that they had ever seen. So the best thing to do for Tazer was to bring him back to Hilliard to our barn, so I could take care of him. We ended up bringing all of our horses back home. Tazer is all healed now and doing great.
My husband and I decided that we won't move the animals to Wilmington until we have run-ins and fencing for the horses done. That being said, he asked me not to collect and hatch goslings this year because it looks like we should be moving in the spring, during the breeding season. If that changes, I will post it here. |
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