We grew a gosling.
So, after the duck sat on the goose eggs for three and a half weeks, the goose took over. Then, three days ago I found this:
After watching the geese doing nothing besides looking at it then wandering off, I decided to intervene.
It took a few hours to get itself out of it's shell. The poor little thing kept flailing with it's one leg still in the shell just slipping against the smooth surface. I didn't want to help it because it looked like it was still partially attached to the shell by some gooey stuff and I was afraid of causing more harm than good.
Apparently all it needed was time to finish the transition, because eventually it achieved this:
I made a beanbag sock, microwaved it, and gave it to the gosling to snuggle up to. We started calling the beanbag, warm buddy .
We weren't sure the gosling would make it through that first night, and it took a couple of days for it to be strong enough to stand for more than a second, but three days later:
The baby doesn't seem to need warm buddy anymore to stay calm. Instead we play this version of On The Borderline for it on loop.
ETA: Since it was such touch and go for the first couple of days, I wasn't sure I did the right thing bringing the baby into the house. We decided that any more hatched goslings would be left for the geese to deal with. That was until I found a dead gosling in the nesting bucket this morning. Now I'm not sure what I'll do if I find any more live ones. This could get complicated.
After watching the geese doing nothing besides looking at it then wandering off, I decided to intervene.
It took a few hours to get itself out of it's shell. The poor little thing kept flailing with it's one leg still in the shell just slipping against the smooth surface. I didn't want to help it because it looked like it was still partially attached to the shell by some gooey stuff and I was afraid of causing more harm than good.
Apparently all it needed was time to finish the transition, because eventually it achieved this:
I made a beanbag sock, microwaved it, and gave it to the gosling to snuggle up to. We started calling the beanbag, warm buddy .
We weren't sure the gosling would make it through that first night, and it took a couple of days for it to be strong enough to stand for more than a second, but three days later:
The baby doesn't seem to need warm buddy anymore to stay calm. Instead we play this version of On The Borderline for it on loop.
ETA: Since it was such touch and go for the first couple of days, I wasn't sure I did the right thing bringing the baby into the house. We decided that any more hatched goslings would be left for the geese to deal with. That was until I found a dead gosling in the nesting bucket this morning. Now I'm not sure what I'll do if I find any more live ones. This could get complicated.