Foster Parents, indeed!

Well, the adult geese have taken so well to the new goslings, that they have not left the pen since the day I brought them home! They are so protective of these fuzzballs, and so 'parental' in fact, that I believe the older goose has stopped laying altogether. (I should begin to use thier names for simplicity's sake, even though I don't really call them by name often). The gander is Larry, the older goose is Mo and the younger goose is Curly. The three stooges--HA! They really are very silly geese.

Yes, I think Mo has decided that these are 'her' goslings and therefore is done laying and has probably decided also that she must have set on their eggs and hatched them out, too. Which is fine, considering her miserable and futile efforts of the past years.

When the Toulouse goose that we had hatched her goslings out, she had them out of the pen and halfway across the yard by the second day. These adults have shown no desire to leave the pen with these to browse. They certainly have enjoyed their greens though, as I go out several times per day and pluck up armfuls of grass, dandlelions and that infernal creeping jenny. I am hoping that they will develop a taste for it especially. Then they can serve as 'weeder geese' for the time they are here... If I ever get them out of the pen.

Bluebirds

Yesterday was the ECIBS annual conference and I heard several people there saying that they already had nests with eggs in their nestboxes. A couple of people who came from south of here even had hatchlings already! I had checked my boxes for the first time a couple of weeks ago and there was not yet any nestbuilding going on. "I guess I had better check my boxes!", I thought.

This morning, I went out to see if anything was going on and sure enough! Two of the boxes already had nests with eggs. The number 1 box had four bluebird eggs, number 2 was empty and number 3 had two bluebird eggs.

Goslings Arrive

I got the news today while on my way to Greenup to pick up four more bags of chick feed from Dillier's Hatchery. Oh, Boy! I still had quite a bit of work to do to get the brooder ready. I had started on it yesterday, knowing that any day now the goslings would be in. Still had loads of old compost to clean out of the goose pen and fresh planer shavings to put down. Still had to place the cinder blocks to set our makeshift brooder house onto, had to hang the heat lamp, get the waterer set up and a feeder of sorts in place....

It was late afternoon before things were all good to go. I didn't make it to town to pick them up
until 5:30. As I walked into the store, there they were in a small galvanized trough waiting for me, "SOLD" sign prominantly displayed. There was a little boy there, maybe three or four, with his mom admiring them, but not touching due to the "Do not touch" signs everywhere. I told them that they were mine, so he could pet one. I picked one up and held it out to him. He was a slightly timid about the idea, but with encouragement from Mom, reached out and gave the fuzz ball a pat. I was surprized at the temperment of this little gaggle. The first ones that we bought four years ago would scream and run away if you reached your hand into the box. These just stood there looking at me...and the one that I reached for, calmly accepted me picking him up. He made gentle gosling peeps as I held him out to the boy...not at all afraid. My first thought was, "Oh dear, if these stay this sweet, how are we ever going to bring ourselves to do the 'dirty deed' when the time comes?"


Here is their home for now. Same as with the chicks, we used a factory-second spreader hopper, overturned onto some cinder blocks. This will be their shelter from the elements and from the older geese, if need be. I am not too worried about it though. From what I have read recently, the geese will make great foster parents for them.

'Geese Grow on Grass' --Mother Earth News, 1970

Easter Eggs

I have decided to stop collecting the goose eggs as of today. I think that Easter is a good day for that. The Africans have never successfully hatched out any eggs. That is not for lack of trying. Both have tried with all of their might...to their own detriment I think. I hate to see them sitting there for so many weeks, barely coming out to eat. They do come out and browse some, but I can't imagine that it would be enough time to nourish themselves. My two females share a nest which has actually worked out. With two nesting spots available last year, they both still wanted the same one. They ended up taking turns laying eggs. One would lay one day and the other would lay the next. When it was time to set, however; it was another story. The younger one (actually a daughter of the African gander at least) was hatched out by our Toulouse goose which we no longer have. She seems to be more dominant over the older one and 'wins' the preferred nest when it is time to set. So each had their turn setting for weeks on end, each on their own nest...only to eventually start breaking rotten egg after egg and finally giving up. I knew that when I saw them browsing all day that it was over.

So I decided to let them keep their eggs starting earlier in the year while it was still cool. Maybe this will make a difference. I'm not sure if the Africans are just not as good at incubating the eggs as Toulouse or what. Maybe they don't keep them turned as they should. I don't know if there is something else I should be doing for them. I do know that the gander covered all of the geese on a regular basis (And darn PROUD of it, too!) so infertile eggs would not be the problem.

Our goslings ordered from the hatchery will be delivered sometime this week. Maybe this will get them in the mothering mood.

First Goose Egg of 2009

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Let it be known that spring has officially begun! The younger African goose has laid her very first egg of the year. The gander has not yet turned defensive and bitey, but this is soon to come I am sure. They are becoming more attached to their pen, as is par for the course.

We found out the first year that we did not prefer the taste and texture of goose eggs over our chickens'. We ended up blowing them all out to use for future eggery crafts. At first, we would drill two holes, one in either end and then blow them out! Boy, was that a headache...literally. DH came up with the idea to use a syringe. We would drill one hole with the Dremel and inserted the needle of a syringe and then draw the white and yolk out. The yolk had to be scrambled first with a bamboo skewer. Much easier! and it was nice to have one hole in the shell only.

I mainly wanted to use the goose eggs for Pysanky, so I was still wondering how I was going to deal with keeping dye out of the hole. Usually Pysanky is done on raw eggs and eventually the egg will dry out after some years. Sometimes the egg will rot and explode! I did not want to take this risk, especially after doing what would be hours of work for me.

The final, happy solution was to set the whole eggs, pointed end up, in a flat box filled half way with silica sand. It has taken about a year and a half, but I now have some whole goose eggs that are completely dry. The dried yolk moves around in the shell like a marble, but the white seems to evaporate through the porous shell. Best of all-- no holes!

I am thinking of trying to bury the eggs in SILICA (used for drying flowers) this year to see if they dry out any faster.

Check out these Chicks!

I finished getting the space ready for the chicks in the chicken run this morning. I went back to town to the Rural King for the purpose of picking up 25 Rock Cornish Cross. At this point, I still was undecided about what I was going to do about layers. After having my car T-boned in the parking lot and dealing with all that (Arrgh!), inside I went to choose my chicks!

I did decide on some layers, too. I chose Ameraucanas and also Leghorns out of the several types that they had. This time, the right guy was there who could tell me what each of the breeds were. These were too old for me to try to guess at the gender. Someone once told me that an easy way to sex day old chicks was to look at the pin feathers on the wings. The pullets' pins will be more advanced than the roos. It was still kind of iffy, but four years ago when we last bought chicks, this method gave us almost 65% pullets. I think we would have done better, but I may have forgotten to check every one in the excitement of the moment! Those who know better will sex the chicks by squeezing out the poop and then they can squeeze a little more and see if there is a little 'nub' (roos) or not (not roos)! I tried to do this, but just couldn't handle this method. Oh well, maybe someday I will have someone show me how. I can only hope that out of the six Ameraucanas and the three Brown Leghorns, that I will get a few pullets out of it. They did have Sex Links, but I wanted something a little more interesting.

Here is the set-up that we put together for them. The shelter is an overturned sand spreader hopper that goes in the back of a pick up truck. This was a factory second that was given to us. I knew right away what I would use it for! So I have it setting up on cinder blocks. The bedding is loose straw with a layer of wood shavings over the top of that. I have the heat lamp hanging from above, plywood on top to cover the opening and I have covered the whole things with a couple of blankets for the night. Last, but not least, there are flakes of hay around the entire thing to keep it snug and warm. I will remove the flakes in front during the day so they can move freely in and out. It is supposed to get down to 34 degrees F tonight, but the rest of the week will not drop that low. I will go out and check on them later to see how they are doing.

The ICYouSee
Handy-Dandy Chicken Chart

Getting Ready for Chicks and Goslings

Yesterday I stopped by the Rural King for a new lawn rake... The weather has been wonderfully warm and breezy and I have accomplished mucho spring clean up this week...looks good, feels even better! Not too surprizingly, they had baby chicks in by the truckload. Six or seven galvanized water troughs were set up with heat lamps and ground corn cobs for bedding. The chicks were straight run, of course. This is the only way you can buy them here unless special ordered. Two whole troughs were Cornish Cross--one trough held chicks a little older than the others. The other troughs were divided up into various other unidentified breeds of straight run chicks. Some look like Rhode Island Reds, Cinnamons and Barred Plymouth Rocks, which we have had before...but still it would only be my best guess, not being so familiar with identifying breeds of chicks. The Rock Cornish Cross, I do know for sure.

I have spent today and yesterday cleaning up the chicken run and getting it ready for about thirty Rock Cornish Cross. These are for the freezer. At the same time, I need to be able to choose maybe half a dozen of a layer breed. I was thinking about ordering older pullets ready to lay, but maybe I will just get the chicks afterall. We are doing ok with the number of eggs that we are still getting from our two remaining three year old hens for now. I worry about whether older pullets would come back to the coop to roost since they would not have been raised here. I don't want hens that I have to keep locked up all the time. I was hoping to have Leghorns this time. I wish I knew someone to ask about bringing in older pullets to a free range situation.

I did place an order for fifteen Toulouse geese for the freezer. I hope our Africans will adopt and care for the new goslings. They were all very protective of the goslings that were hatched here two years ago by one of my geese. I hope they will do the same for the 'orphans' when they come. If they don't protect them, I will have to concern myself with keeping them safe from the barn kitties...after all, they look like just another bird to four kitties who are used to hunting!