Seven and a half goslings

Mother's Day dawned at Newhouse Farm, and my first activity of the day was to go downstairs to the incubators and spray the eggs with their usual dosage of warm water. But to my surprise, on top of the goose-egg incubator I found a card which was labelled "To Our Mummy". After realising this must be intended for me, I grinned like an idiot and opened the card to read the greeting inside: "Hopefully we will get to meet you soon mummy! But we won't start counting till we hatch x"

The card was, of course, written by James' mum Briget and his sister Charlotte, as a very sweet gesture to help ease the anxieties I'd been feeling about the chicks. According to my research the goslings weren't due to hatch for another 5 days, so I had a few day's respite before the nerve-wracking process of hatchings started again. But as I peered inside the incubator I saw an unusual sight: it looked like one of the eggs had become chipped. How could this be? I was always so careful to place the lid gently back on the incubator each time I sprayed the eggs. I lifted the lid to inspect the crack, only to realise that most of the eggs had developed similar cracks. Then the realisation hit me: the goslings were hatching! What's more I could hear them: a sound that I thought was the kettle whistling was in fact the faint chirruping noises of the goslings in their shells.

Excitement and mild panic ensued! My first reaction was to scurry around trying to find my diary, as I was flabberghasted that they could be hatching so far ahead of schedule. Once I realised that looking in my diary wasn't going to stop the goslings from hatching I began to make preparations for their imminent arrival. Next to the incubator I made a temporary hatchery out of a black barrel with a layer of sawdust, and a heat lamp hanging above it. This would serve as a good place for the goslings to spend their first couple of days before going into their proper house in the potting shed.

The rest of the day was spent watching the fascinating process of the goslings hatching. When I'd first placed the goslings in the incubator 28 days ago, Dick and I each picked an egg we thought would hatch first and wrote our names in pencil on top of the shell. Now the race was on, as both of our eggs appeared to be competing to become the first to hatch. After several hours I'm pleased to announce that MY egg was the first gosling to hatch, hurrah! Once it forced itself out of its shell it stood squashed and shivering, surrounded by its unhatched siblings. I was amazed by the bright yellow of its feathers, and its perfectly formed beak.

Once the first gosling had dried out enough for all its feathers to have become fluffy, I moved it to the barrel to allow more space for the other eggs to hatch. It had enough food in its belly to last it another 24 hours, but I put some crumbs and water next to it just in case it got peckish. Throughout the rest of the day the other eggs continued to hatch one by one, until at last 6 goslings had emerged and another 2 were still chipping away at their shells.

The 8th gosling in particular seemed to be having difficulties breaking free, and eventually the decision was made to give it a helping hand by carefully chipping away some of its shell. I was nervous and reluctant about doing this, as I'd read that any chick that's helped out of its shell doesn't have a very good chance of survival. Just before I went to bed this gosling finally forced the last inhibiting part of its shell away and lay slumped on the bottom of the incubator, half in and half out of its shell. All I could to was to leave it alone and hope that by morning it would have found the strength to stand.

The next morning I immediately rushed downstairs to the incubator and found 2 goslings inside. One was the 7th chick which had finally made its way out of its shell and dried out enough to join the others in the barrel. But the 8th chick still lay on the floor of the incubator in exactly the same position as the night before. I assumed it was dead, but as I looked closer I noticed that it was still breathing. The poor thing was actually stuck to the floor of the incubator, held in its place by the sticky egg membrane which had dried out overnight and hardened like glue. Very carefully I prized the gosling away from the base of the incubator, and helped its bottom half out of its shell. It still looked very weak and feeble, and I was filled with anxiety that it wouldn't survive.

Yet as the day wore on the 8th gosling seemed to muster some strength and began stumbling around the interior of the incubator. Briget had advised me that any weak chicks or animals could be given a few drops of Bach's Rescue Remedy in order to give them a boost of resiliance. So I decided to administer this medicine to the gosling, holding its head very gently in my hand and squeezing a few drops of Rescue Remedy onto the end of its beak. Amazingly this seemed to do the trick. The 8th gosling was soon up on its feet and by the end of the day it was ready to join the rest of its siblings.

The following day I moved all the goslings outside to their house in the potting shed: a large wooden box with a liftable lid, a door for easy access, and a window for ventilation that was covered with chicken wire. I'd placed pieces of wood across each of the 4 corners in order to prevent the goslings from crushing into the corners, a habit they apparently have a tendency to do which can result in them being killed. A couple of days went by and the goslings were gaining strength. They'd found there feet and were taking wobbly steps around their house, tipping their heads back to swallow mouthfuls of water, and tucking into their food.

The 8th gosling had been progressing fairly well. It was still weaker than the others, and whenever I went to check on them I'd push it towards the front of the food bowl to make sure it got its share of food. It still had some dried goop sticking to its neck feathers, but it was able to walk and seemed to be growing stronger. But very sadly it didn't survive. James and I had been away for the day, and when I returned Dick broke the news to me that one of the goslings was dead. I don't know why it died, buy I'm assuming that eventually the fight for life left it. I have to admit I was really sad: the gosling had lived for 3 days and I'd hoped that the worst was over for it. Dick told me a saying that he'd learnt when the Strawbridges first acquired some animals for the farm: 'Where's there's lifestock, there's deadstock'. Sad but true, and I knew that I had to toughen up in order to deal with the ups and downs of caring for farm animals.

However for the rest of the goslings the tale is a happy one. They've all survived, which according to Steve is pretty remarkable as I only placed 10 goose eggs in the incubator. Day by day they're growing bigger, stronger, and more hilarious. I'd been told that goslings and ducklings have a tendency to 'imprint' themselves upon the thing that they see the most of during the first few hours of their life, which means that they consider this thing to be their mother. I'd been spending a lot of time with the goslings, so one sunny day I decided to put this theory to the test, by taking them out for their first walk.

It seems the goslings consider me to be some kind of mother figure, so when I took them for a walk they waddled after me wherever I went. Firstly we walked to a patch of grass that overlooked the area where the ducks and geese live. The goslings' real mother and father soon came to the fence to see what all these yellow furry creatures were, and as they honked and hissed the goslings hid behind me to escape the noise. Little do they realise they'll soon turn into such noisy adults themselves!

Next up we went for a walk to the polytunnel, where the goslings gained confidence and soon began to explore their surroundings. This was a big mistake, because they started tucking into the seedlings that James and I had so carefully been tending. After a lot of coaxing and shooing, and a couple of goslings falling into the pond, we managed to get them to follow me back outside.

Then we walked next to the stream, and it wasn't long before one of the goslings lost its balance and tumbled into the water. The other goslings followed it in a yellow furred stampede, and soon all the goslings were splashing around in the water filled with excitement. I grabbed my wellies and walked down to a deeper bit of the stream where the goslings started diving under the water and swimming around my feet in a rapid circles, flapping their wings and chirping with glee.

A fortnight on and the goslings have grown so big we've moved them onto a large piece of grass by the fruit trees at the back of the house. They eat so much grass each day that they leave scorched patches of poop covered earth where their run has been. I've acquired a huge soft spot for the goslings, and I defy anyone to not be cheered by the sight of these 7 excitable creatures charging to meet me each morning. It's a pity that the 8th gosling didn't make it, but I'm so pleased that the rest of the gang are doing so well.



And just when I thought that the emotional rollercoaster was at its end, it started all over again when small cracks and chips started to appear in the duck eggs. Why did I ever think it was such a good idea to hatch all these eggs at the same time?! To be continued...

This is the face I pulled when a gosling projectile pooped onto my hand!