Will My Geese Sit their Eggs or Not?

[Heckedypeg]

Hi! This is my first post on BYC. I have a small flock of geese with 1 pilgrim male, 1 pilgrim female, 3 Chinese males, 1 Chinese female, and an old Dewlap Toulouse - not sure if it’s male or female. Our geese have started laying, we get 1-2 eggs a day. When they first started, they would lay the egg in their house and then abandon it for the day. Now, they are all camping out in front of their house and acting protective and upset when we come near the nest. They appear to have 4-5 eggs in there, plus some chickens eggs. The issue is, none of the chickens or geese are reliably sitting on the nest. I’ll see a hen or the Dewlap Toulouse on there sometimes, but not consistently. Is it possible that they’re waiting until there’s a certain number of eggs, and then they’ll sit? Or is this just goose silliness? Haha. Last year, the Dewlap Toulouse sat on eggs for a month and was very broody, but the eggs never hatched and ended up going rotten I would love for the geese to hatch their own eggs.
Is there anything I can do to encourage broody behavior? Does paring down my flock to just 1 male and 1 female increase broody behavior?

 

[sourland]

They will not go broody until they build a clutch. As long as you take the eggs, they will continue to lay. Chances for successful brooding/hatching will better if they have separate nests. Co brooding and staggered hatches lead to lower % hatch rates.

 

[Heckedypeg]

They will not go broody until they build a clutch. As long as you take the eggs, they will continue to lay. Chances for successful brooding/hatching will better if they have separate nests. Co brooding and staggered hatches lead to lower % hatch rates.

Do you mean a separate nest for each female? How can I encourage them to build separate nests if they’re laying eggs together?
I should have mentioned in the original post - the pilgrim male and female are the dominant geese.

 

[JRies]

I have allot of girls

Hi! This is my first post on BYC. I have a small flock of geese with 1 pilgrim male, 1 pilgrim female, 3 Chinese males, 1 Chinese female, and an old Dewlap Toulouse - not sure if it’s male or female. Our geese have started laying, we get 1-2 eggs a day. When they first started, they would lay the egg in their house and then abandon it for the day. Now, they are all camping out in front of their house and acting protective and upset when we come near the nest. They appear to have 4-5 eggs in there, plus some chickens eggs. The issue is, none of the chickens or geese are reliably sitting on the nest. I’ll see a hen or the Dewlap Toulouse on there sometimes, but not consistently. Is it possible that they’re waiting until there’s a certain number of eggs, and then they’ll sit? Or is this just goose silliness? Haha. Last year, the Dewlap Toulouse sat on eggs for a month and was very broody, but the eggs never hatched and ended up going rotten I would love for the geese to hatch their own eggs.
Is there anything I can do to encourage broody behavior? Does paring down my flock to just 1 and 1 female increase broody behavior?

I have allot of girls. They tend to teem nesting boxes (there is one for each of them). As for a girl that will go broody most of mine dont but when one dose they all add eggs to her nest. I guess the best way to explain this is there is a main goose the woman in charge. She will probably go broody and the other girls will contribute and let her. Its about the gaggle the group the family. Just what i have observed. I don't usually let them go broody I collect 3 times a day. The boys get protective of the nest and whatever nest there favorite boy protects is the one they want to lay in. Its amazing but boys have more to do with what nest they pick.