AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Note that I have been ‘lucky’ with this – I do not and will not say this will work for everyone. But this is what I did with success on 2 occasions now = 7yrs apart

Background =

‘Lucky’ the goose is now 7yrs old and still going great guns viewtopic.php?f=4&t=730
^ for those interested in Luck's story

BUT back to the actual subject = ‘premmy’ goslings =

This season we had another hatch early, this one was 6 to 7 days early
this baby was ‘tired’ but was breathing well suprisingly. It just stayed in the shell making no attempt to push out of it, so a damp cloth around the shell and warmth
all the siblings hatched 6 and 7 days later, all hatched quickly and without help all strong healthy and doing well .

So I just repeated the ‘Lucky’ regime and this little one survived (I am obviously a sucker for premmy babies!!) – no idea for a name yet as we have a ‘Lucky’ and this little one is growing well and follows us everywhere and SCREAMS like a banshee if it can’t see us
It is now 3 weeks old as opposed to it 2 week old siblings, is just as active and just as annoying when screaming for attention.

The ‘Lucky’ regime –

A warm damp cloth around the shell and partly over the head of the gosling, but not over the bill (it needs to breath of course), to emulate it still being in the shell. Then popped back into the incubator for warmth.

Droplets of water (with vitamins in it) every 2hours for the first 2 days (only a few droplets each time) until it started to hold its head up a bit and started to show signs of wanting to move out of its warm shell and damp cloth. But I kept it in there as we could see the yolk was still absorbing and didn’t want it to break.

Day 3 was the start of feeding a warm runny slop made of Turkey Starter and the water with the vitamins in it, runny so it would slide down the throat easily. It was looking around for food so it got it = only a small amount each time tho so it didn’t vomit it back up and asphyxiate.

Day 4 it was happily eating this slop and was brought out of the shell as it had started to poop and needed to be cleaned regularly. It was still kept in a damp cloth in the incubator tho to prevent the yolk drying out too early as it still needed that for nutrition.

Day 5 it was introduced to small pieces a grass to see what it would do = and like all goslings it ‘attacked it’ and ate on its own. It also had absorbed the yolk enough that I felt confident to allow it to move its legs. But with supervision.

Day 6 the damp cloth was taken away and the bird put under a heat lamp, by the end of day 6 the bit of yolk left to be absorbed had both absorbed/dried and the gosling was trying to stand = so it got Physio to help it learn how to use them. Its siblings were starting to hatch.

Day 7 the gosling was walking on its own and was eating both the slop and grass. The last of its siblings had hatched and all the newbies were resting recovering.

Day 8 the premmy gosling was following us around everywhere being a right royal pain at times = so it survived and at 3 weeks old is doing very well