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Done With Goose Eggs.
Jul. 9th, 2012 01:51 pmWell, for this year at least. It doesn't mean we wont try again next year.
The last of the goose eggs were rotting or duds. I tossed the last four into the garbage last night, since it was garbage pickup early this morning.
While looking at geese on the Metzer Farm website, I ran across the information that geese can live to be 15 or 20 years old. So it's kind of like taking on the responsibility of a small dog or a cat in terms of lifespan.
This is of course assuming there is no loss to predators and the geese are properly cared for. Since the oldest chicken I've managed is 5.5 years, I'm not sure how I'm doing in the properly cared for department. For one thing, I don't deworm my birds - other than what they may ingest from horse poop after I've dewormed the horses. It makes us fairly close to an organic farm, but I suppose high parasite loads could shorten the length of life for the geese. Still, I may get a good 12 years out of the pair. Lots of seasons to try again with the baby goose experiment. And next year I'm going to leave well enough alone (other than photos till about 24 days development) and see what happens. I'm fairly certain any interference on my part just made things worse for the babies.
On a side note, the ducks are acting broody now, too. I have to shoo them off their nest every morning to collect their eggs (apologizing for the lack of males, thus the lack of fertilization of their eggs, as I do so).
The last of the goose eggs were rotting or duds. I tossed the last four into the garbage last night, since it was garbage pickup early this morning.
While looking at geese on the Metzer Farm website, I ran across the information that geese can live to be 15 or 20 years old. So it's kind of like taking on the responsibility of a small dog or a cat in terms of lifespan.
This is of course assuming there is no loss to predators and the geese are properly cared for. Since the oldest chicken I've managed is 5.5 years, I'm not sure how I'm doing in the properly cared for department. For one thing, I don't deworm my birds - other than what they may ingest from horse poop after I've dewormed the horses. It makes us fairly close to an organic farm, but I suppose high parasite loads could shorten the length of life for the geese. Still, I may get a good 12 years out of the pair. Lots of seasons to try again with the baby goose experiment. And next year I'm going to leave well enough alone (other than photos till about 24 days development) and see what happens. I'm fairly certain any interference on my part just made things worse for the babies.
On a side note, the ducks are acting broody now, too. I have to shoo them off their nest every morning to collect their eggs (apologizing for the lack of males, thus the lack of fertilization of their eggs, as I do so).
