Six Bills Waving In

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Congrats! So much better when the mommas hatch babies themselves and seeing the bills is soooo exciting

My goose just got her eggs back on Saturday because last week was still so very cold at night. -12 and eggs probably would have been lost while she decided whether to sit or not but now she's on them so even if it gets cold again she'll keep them warm yeah! Love Spring and mommas with babies

Very cool, they know for sure. I do not understand what you are saying when you speak of billed eggs. Is this terminology exclusive to goose eggs or something? Could you please further define what you speak about, I am curious. Just don't get it. Sorry. Only thing I can imagine is that the bills are very, very visible with goslings inside their home. Define please. Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Cynthia if you candle eggs at just the right time before hatching you will get to see the bill or beak in the air cell Its very exciting to see

I posted pics not long ago of duckling bills up in the air cell and the little one was peeping and trying to capture my light on its egg like it was a tasty fly Very cool and an amazing experience to see. I've seen it with chicks as well but their little beaks just aren't as big so not as easy to see especially with coloured shells.

Finding bills up in the air cell means Tara is about to have little fuzz balls hatching very very soon

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Oh Tara, all I will say right now is just ever so cool and I love your birdy talk!! Have a beautiful day, CynthiaM.

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Oh, oh, oh, I have been waiting for these pictures. Wow, look at the size of those melons!! How big would you say the babies are now, Tara. It seems like I could define them like maybe the size of a softball, with an oval shape to it? Hard to tell, cause I don't know how big the geese are, but I bet they are huge!! Seven days old and look at them go!! Geeze, can there be anything more cute than babies, any species you choose to speak about, babies, geeze, babies.

Good idea about the water in the holding area and food too. I imagine messes can be made. Are geese like ducks, in that they love to mess with water? (I remember the muscovy babies and the water, eeee gads). One day, when I have a farm of my own to run, there are so many different critters that I know I will have. Geese will be on that list too, and it is getting bigger and bigger. Bet get Hubby's arse in gear to find a little plot of land to build our little cottage on, smiling. No place on Daughter's farm for those extras, unless I could get her to downsize horses, but good luck with that one

So...what other questions do I have, cause I know I will get an answer and probably a very long winded one , hugs Tara, by the way.

So...how long will you be keeping them in the coop? You do this for the babies to get their sea legs? Not quite understanding, cause I don't think other critters would be mean to a goose pair, they probably would be running the other way. When do they get to go outside? Is there any other geese pairs that are making babies? Are there any black swans that are making babies? Will the black swans make babies? I bet those babies would be the most beautiful thing. Oh....I bet you will have some pictures of the babies of the ducks that nest in the boxes so deep, up on the wall...Are they making babies?

Babies. Oh my gordon, this world is full of babies. I have a buff orpington that began hatching babies yesterday. I saw a blue cochin out from below her belly, he looked at me for a long time when I was giving water and food to her area, and then bopped back in under mamma's warm Jamaica humid belly. Can't wait to go and see how many hatched. Hopefully 12 of the 12. No reason why not, those cochin dudes are surely doing a beautiful thing now, good results. Oops, your thread. Back to goose.

Do you need to feed grit to geese? Kind of a dumb question, but I don't know. I never fed grit to my ducks, but then back on the coast they were always outside every day, and never snow that covered the ground for maybe a day or two or three now and then. I don't know why I wonder about these things, but I do. Grit? It must be huge!! I feed my chickens #2 grit, what on earth size do geese require. Thanks for htis awesome post, have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Thanks for the update pictures. They are so darn cute.

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Love the pictures and the written story. The babies are delightful! I will never be brave enough to have geese, they scare the living day lights out of me.

Absolutely delightful. So, when I looked again at the pictures of the 7 day old goslings, I tried to picture, in my mind's eye, the actual size. I laid that mason jar, I see it is a quart size, on its side and that would have been about the length of the goslings, good picture of the size. Now the next set of pictures at 12 days old, in my mind's eye, I had to lay that gallon water font on its side, and the babies looked liked they might be about that long, maybe a little shorter. Unbelievable growth in just under a week. Reminds me of the muscovies, how fast they grew too. So amazing! Geeze thanks Tara, this is just another wonderful walk by your side. Geese scare me, think I have said this before. I think it is the way they look at you and the mouth opens, there are teeth in there!! I can remember my Uncles teasing us kids. I think they must have had a goose in their growing up days. They would always ask me if we wanted a gander bite. I can seriously remember running away from my beloved Uncles when they would ask this horrid question. Boy did they love to tease us kids. I loved my Uncles, only two still alive of 5 (Mother's side), and he is still as delightful as he was as a young man teasing his Nieces and Nephews....rats, ramblin' off that topic imagine that.

I love how you take so much time to feed the babies with all those goodies you cut up for them. I am too lazy for that. My birds just get stuff thrown to them, babies only get their baby food for awhile, til they can eat other stuff, just a lazy side to me. Not that I don't care, but I don't care I guess . Thanks for this beautiful post Tara, have a most awesome day, CynthiaM.

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Oh I love it, the walk by your side, almost as much as I enjoyed your time with the robins last spring, smiling. The last picture. I was looking at the little gobbling, oops, gosling, smiling, I was looking at the teeny tiny little wings. It is so difficult to imagine that little blips like that for wings will turn out to be the most enormous wings I have ever seen. Referring to the picture of the male with his massive wings outstretched in one of the prior pictures. Geeze. Such beauty, I am just thrilled to look at these pictures. I still cannot get over how fast these little ones have grown. Oh my, I just can't say enough.

so, ya, here we go, as you have given permission , we know we all ramble off topic, it IS indeed a good thing. Back to muscovies. I know exactly what you mean Tara about the babies tiring out. I think the massive bodies that are developing, I know there are larger ducks than the muscoveys, but this is my experience (oh ya, had some runners and rouens too once, but not long, ichy birds, didn't like them at all). The big style birds, as I was saying, I think run out of steam very fast, probably too much growing, even when they are walking. I used to watch the little groups of muscovey babies as mamma was taking them around. They had to stop about every 20 feet and take a rest. all of them. They would walk, run, whatever and then just flop down. Rest for a minute and then carry on following mamma. Mamma could walk for miles, but those little tikes, only just such a short distance. It used to make me laugh, they exhausted themselves so easily. Mamma also knew that they needed resting. Oh the waterfowl, oh the waterfowl, one fine day, one fine day, again these will grace my life, smiling. Gosh. Do you know how much those adults weigh? Any clues? I am sure you have never picked them up, could you? Awaiting more pictures as those babies get older, they are just so cool to see. Have an awesome day, CynthiaM.

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Strange things that come up in my mind. Now I am thinking grit. Something you said brought me there. You spoke of your geese on grass, without the ability to get out and emery board down their toenails. Makes sense that the nails would need clipping. Those muscovy nails, geesh, killers, I remember a laceration once, from those nails. Learned how properly how to pick up the species very quickly after that, smiling. It was grit. They have grit all year around? Right grit. I see in the wintertime time, on the sides of the road, where the snow is not, hundreds and hundreds of birds now and then. Mostly ravens, because they are so noticeable. I always wondered what they were doing on the side of the road. I am nearly positive they are getting the roadside gravel and sand from the sand trucks. I presume all fowl need grit. Do all fowl have that gizzard that grinds up food? Goes to know how little I really know, I admit that, with no problem at all.

Ah, so the outstretched wing was the goose, not the gander, that is amazing, oh such beauty. An even more interesting was the information about flight feathers being white, because white makes strong feathers, white is a strong colour -- what about the knight in shining white armour, wonder if it is the same thing....white is strong. Just a very interesting bit of trivia and I like to learn stuff. Cool. White, that is a beautiful non-colour and one of my favourites too. Especially a white t-shirt when I have the farmer's tan on me arms , which I am now sporting

Yes the picture of the pen with her wings outstretched. I clearly recall that picture from another thread. The red on her face, the red in the background, the orange, and then the black and white, and there was brown and green, what a beautiful combination of colours. Thrills for the eyes for surely. Have a beautiful day, CynthiaM.

No, no, no Tara. When I asked if you had picked up the goose I did mean that. I know you probably know the weight, as there are stated weights for the breeds, but I think I wanted to know how it FELT to pick up the goose. they looked so big that it seemed like it would be a very daunting task to pick one up. I remember I used to pick up my turkeys, think they were more feathers than weight , but I could pick them up. The geese looked like they would be very dense. I did not realize that there was an actual weight that they should be, so that is what you could expect. Do the geese have sharp hooked toenails? Those freakin' muscovy nails are deadly and just awful. I did not pick up those ducks ever, unless I absolutely had to. They did not wear down their toenails, even though they free ranged everywhere on the coast, the choice of 5 acres, if they so chose, but they most stayed in the acre surrounding the chickens and them. I never thought to cut them, but then really, was not a need. I think if they had lived on soft stuff, they would have horrible long fingernails. Beautiful days, CynthiaM.

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Oh wow, I can't believe how the down feathers have changed colour. I went back and looked at the first pictures of the goslings. They were yellow with beige on the head and other parts, now they are all beige, is the colour called fawn? Not beige? Not sure. My, my, how they are growing. And yes, I see too the new little feathers coming on those teeny tiny wings. And the size of them, looky at that, bigger than the gallon font now, boy oh boy. keep those pictures coming as they grow Tara, this is a beautiful view from you, not from your shoes . I'm lovin' it, bring 'em!! Amazing how smart they are to toss the broccoli flowerets to have them smash apart to get little hunks, just too cool! Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.