Goose Eggs

[Goldiflocks Farmette]

Hi there! I know variations of these questions have been posted before, but I couldn’t find exactly in the answers. I was looking for. I have 2, month old Sebastopol geese. I just caught one of them laying an egg yesterday!!! So exciting! And there were four eggs total in the secret nest. I don’t know if my other goose is a male or a female. So of course, I’m wondering if these eggs could possibly be fertile. I have never seen the two physically interact. Neither were possessive of the nest when I went over to check it today. Neither are very outgoing.

I would love to have goslings. I have a few broody chickens I could use as mama stand ins. But not sure if I should do that? The nest is right on the edge of our pond and it’s been raining for 3 days so they are in a very wet spot. Should I leave them there? Since they are wet would they be safe to eat if I decided to go that route? Should I add anything to the area to keep it drier?

Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I am just so excited

 

[Daniel Grey]

Oh sorry, I'm not a goose expert.☹

 

[judyc]

Move the eggs. They don't need to be wet. If you want to see if they're fertile, you could put them under a broody hen, then candle them after a week to see if there's any development.

 

[GoldenGryphon]

Hi there! I know variations of these questions have been posted before, but I couldn’t find exactly in the answers. I was looking for. I have 2, month old Sebastopol geese. I just caught one of them laying an egg yesterday!!! So exciting! And there were four eggs total in the secret nest. I don’t know if my other goose is a male or a female. So of course, I’m wondering if these eggs could possibly be fertile. I have never seen the two physically interact. Neither were possessive of the nest when I went over to check it today. Neither are very outgoing.

I would love to have goslings. I have a few broody chickens I could use as mama stand ins. But not sure if I should do that? The nest is right on the edge of our pond and it’s been raining for 3 days so they are in a very wet spot. Should I leave them there? Since they are wet would they be safe to eat if I decided to go that route? Should I add anything to the area to keep it drier?

Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I am just so excited

If they're laying eggs, they are much older than a month old.
If you haven't been hearing the sounds of goose mating, they aren't mating. They might both be female and share the nest. Goose mating seems, at least with my geese, to be a very noisy affair with lots of yelling involved. Males (ganders) fight each other. Females (geese or hens) don't, although they might act out mating.

I know that Sebastapol have one of the lower fertility rates to begin with, so I wouldn't worry about hatching eggs unless you want to try.
You can put the eggs under a broody standard chicken and she will hatch them out. Geese take an average of a week longer to hatch out, so your hen needs to be in good shape and Very Broody! I've hatched one goose under a hen and he was an amazing, if very confused, bird. I miss him.

The eggs need a higher humidity than chicken eggs do, if they are fertile, but you can handle them the same way as you would a chicken egg. They just are larger and take longer. They don't need to be wet and I would be hesitant about hatching eggs that had sat in cold water.

If they look and smell fine, they're fine to eat. They have a slightly different taste and are much larger than chicken eggs. I used to sell my goose eggs to a man who made an omelet out of them when he could get them. I've used them in baking and they are great for that.

It sounds like neither of your geese have gone broody, yet. If they are broody, they act just like a broody chicken but with more hissing.
You can candle them just like you would with chicken eggs. The shells are much thicker, so it can be hard to see detail, but blood vessels are visible from fairly early on.

Good luck with your geese! Have fun!

 

[AGeese]

If there's no sign of mating activity which is a pretty big display then likely they aren't fertile. Month old geese are goslings. If you actually saw one of them laying an egg, then it's not a gosling and it's at least 6 months to over a year old.

About the eggs, if they got cold and they're not sitting then I'd take them right away. They should be ok to eat now or wash up and put in the fridge.

Back to the fertility until I know more about these geese I'm going to go with either they're both females or the male is still a gosling.