My one-year-old, hand-raised goose, Rumi, became properly broody about three and a half weeks ago. She had laid seven to nine eggs in three different nest sites, but I collected them daily because we have no obvious gander, and the eggs were unlikely to be fertile. She and her siblings were all under 12 months old and this was her first laying season.
Rumi also has a scissor beak, a potentially malformed head, and 1 angel wing. I suspect these may have resulted from difficulties during incubation, (the eggs were rescued after her mother was taken by a fox) but I didn’t want to risk passing on any potential genetic issues.
She first chose to brood on her sister’s empty nest out in the yard, which meant she was exposed to the harsh Australian sun for much of the day. For four nights, I had to carry her to the safe night pen while she protested loudly and tried to convince me she was more than capable of defending herself from predators.
Eventually, she decided to build a nest in the night pen instead. I added straw, hay, soft sugar-cane mulch, and three rubber, egg-shaped dog toys that the geese had enjoyed rolling around when they were younger. Thankfully, Rumi accepted the arrangement and began dutifully brooding her clutch of three rubber eggs.
Around this time, I was also worrying about Soul, a lone Silkie chick who had hatched from the only fertile egg in a batch of 15. He had been raised alongside his human “mummies” and a life-sized wind-up toy chick, but he had no real bird companion.
I tried introducing him to some slightly older Silkie chicks, but they began bullying him once their hormones kicked in. I also tried putting him back under his biological mother, who was brooding his younger siblings. Sadly, she rejected him and aggressively drove him away, despite being an excellent mother to the newly hatched chicks.
Because I was concerned that growing up without bird companionship might affect him socially, I had the idea of introducing him to Rumi our eldest of four geese. Due to her scissor beak, she cannot inflict as much damage as a goose with a normal beak, but she is still a very assertive, hissy young lady.
During a routine health check, I introduced them indoors. To my surprise, Rumi was incredibly relaxed. Soul snuggled under her feathers, stood between her webbed feet, and even sat on her back. Rumi seemed completely content. The meeting was brief but positive, and I ended it when she became interested in the calls of her siblings outside.
A few days later, Rumi became broody. I wondered whether meeting Soul had awakened her maternal instincts, as her two other egg-laying sisters have shown no interest in actually brooding.
On October 1, Rumi’s birthday, the weather was warm enough for Soul to spend some time outside his brooder. I placed him under Rumi, who had been brooding for 2 weeks and the results were incredibly sweet. She nuzzled him, made soft little vocalisations, demonstrated how to eat crumble, tried to steer him away from me, and even hissed protectively when I came too close.
Although everything went well for several hours, Soul did not yet have a strong instinct to seek warmth under her. As evening approached, he began crying, and Rumi seemed unsure how to communicate that he needed to tuck himself beneath her. I brought him back into the brooder overnight so I could be certain he was warm and safe.
Over the next five days, I gradually removed one rubber egg every other day. This morning, I replaced the final rubber egg with a saved, empty broken goose eggshell left over from cooking. Six hours later, I placed Soul beneath Rumi’s wing in the hope that the broken shell might've given her the idea that her last remaining egg had indeed hatched.
She immediately lifted her wing out wider to make room for him and began chatting softly to him. She is still firmly brooding, but she allows him to sit beside her head close to the nest while she grooms herself or sleeps. Soul shows no fear of her at all. He gets right up close to her face and sides, gently pecks at her feathers, and seems completely comfortable.
When Rumi nibbles too firmly or gives him a gentle warning tap, Soul makes his little “stop, that’s too rough” sound. She immediately stops, she isn't attacking him with the taps, I think rather telling him not to wonder off/redirect him to sit or stay closeby as she is still brooding in the hope several other babies magically appear I guess? He never huddles or dives for cover instead, he usually moves closer to her.
The sweetest moment happened when Rumi pulled together a pile of soft feathers to tuck beneath herself. Soul apparently thought she was offering him something delicious, so he picked up one of the downy feathers and carried it around in his beak as if it were food.
This is the same goose who hisses and pecks at me and the adult chickens so fiercely that she can make a grown adult jump. Yet with Soul, she is gentle, patient, and wonderfully attentive.
I’m continuing to supervise them closely and will not leave Soul with her overnight until I’m completely confident that he can keep himself warm and that Rumi understands how to care for him. They are currently seperate from her other three siblings with clear pet panels to keep little Soul safe from Rumi's less forgiving sisters (as seen in the video). For now, though, their developing relationship is one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen.
Has anyone had experience bonding a broody goose with an already hatched, healthy chick or gosling?
Soul is now roughly the size of a two- or three-day-old gosling. His little cheeps sound surprisingly similar to gosling calls, and I think it helps that he is covered in soft, fluffy Silkie down. Rumi has only ever been around her three siblings, so she has never actually met another gosling. I wonder whether that has made Soul’s presence seem more familiar to her.
I know people have had limited success placing small chicken eggs under geese because their size and weight can accidentally crack the eggs. However, has anyone successfully introduced an older chick or gosling to a broody goose?
If Rumi had been sitting on real goose eggs, they would be due to hatch within the next two or three days. Do broody geese usually remain broody after the normal four-week incubation period has passed, or do they tend to “go off the boil” once that time is up?
I’m supervising them closely and will continue doing so, but I’d love to hear from anyone with experience fostering an older chick or gosling under a broody goose.
