It's been nearly a fortnight, so this evening I candled my goose eggs for the second time since setting them in the incubator.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, "candling" is a method which bird breeders use to verify that eggs incubated for hatching are fertile. To candle an egg, a very bright light is held behind it to illuminate the shape of the embryo inside the shell. Fertility is determined based on the color, shape, and opacity of the contents. When no veining is present and the egg is very bright inside, we call this a "clear" egg, meaning it's unfertilized or otherwise not viable.  It all usually starts with a dark spot, which grows veins, then the little baby inside begins to take shape and you can often see it moving when you shine your light on it.

Here are pictures of the eggs.  These are not my best work, I haven't gotten the hang of ultra low light photography.  At least they're not blurry, which requires a lot of steadiness and holding of breath for such a dark room.

Shipping is very hard on hatching eggs.  The post office is fairly rough with the boxes and no matter how well you pack them, sometimes you end up with broken eggs or detached air-sacks, or otherwise "scrambled" eggs on the delivery side.  Plus, it's impossible to tell whether an egg is fertile until it's been incubated for about a week. 

The right temperature and humidity conditions must be reached before all the eggs in a clutch sort of "click on" and begin growing.  This ensures that when the hen finally lays her last egg for a clutch that they all hatch within 24 hours of each other.  An egg laid 6 days prior to her setting the nest begins growing at exactly the same time as the one she just laid.  Right up until those perfect conditions are met, a fertile egg looks exactly like an infertile egg.  Many people believe that a blood spot on the yolk is an indication, that only means that a bit of blood was trapped inside the egg when it was being formed... hens with no male to fertilize eggs lay those just as often as the ladies who have a man around.

I'm crossing my fingers on those two questionable American Blues.  I've never hatched goose eggs before so I'm going off of past experience with chicken, duck and Muscovy eggs.

Speaking of which, that Muscovy girl that looked and sounded like she was considering setting a nest is a confirmed broody.  She's been keeping a couple of wooden eggs warmed up and has created a beautiful nest for them, lined with downy feathers pulled from her own chest.  Tonight I took these goose eggs out of the incubator and put them under her warm bottom.  If they're gonna hatch at all, they'll do it under her expert care.  Then she can raise those babies instead of me.  I love babies but everyone will benefit from this pretty little Muscovy doing what she does best.

No matter how often I watch them grow, I’m always amazed at the rapid bulk this variety puts on daily.  I’ll peek in the window of the Muscovy loft in the chilly pre-dawn to say good morning to mama Lumi and her brood dozing under the heat-lamp and when I return from work in the evening I see her kiddos have sprouted up during the day!  

In the past I’ve noted that for this strain of French White Production Muscovy the drakes put on 12 pounds in 12 weeks… whew!  They just seem to grow while you watch.

As a comparison to the video I took of their first day out when they were only 2 days old, here’s a video I took of them starting their day on December 29th when they were 4 weeks old:

They’re curious, quick, and sassy.  It’s hard to keep an eye on them all the time, but they do have eyes on them throughout the day.  Unfortunately, only 9 remain of the original 13.  I lost one the first week when it climbed into a chilly duck pond.  That prompted me to keep them separated in their own yard until recently when they began to feather out.  One was born with an issue and only made it to week 2.  After letting them out to range the property again with mama, I lost 2 more over several days to cold pond water… as I said, it’s hard to keep an eye on them all day and this is really the wrong time of the year for baby waterfowl.

This is the first time I’ve let a Muscovy mama raise the babies and, mainly because it's winter,  it’s been a lot of work for everyone!  But I’ve learned so much and hopefully Miss Lumi’s lessons benefit future broods.  A new and improved system will go into place this year so that when my girls inevitably go broody on the cusp of winter we can avoid the major pitfalls.

My girl Lumi is a mama!  (“Lumi” is a Scandinavian word for “snow”).  Miss Lumi is only 8 months old now but back at the end of October she and her sister decided to set a couple of nests.  I figured that they'd give up before the required 35 days and I'd planned to gather the abandoned embryos for my incubator... if I got to them in time.  Halfway through, her sister decided she'd rather be playing outside, but Lumi stuck to it (she even rolled her sisters eggs over into her own nest!) and on December 1st she hatched out 13 little babies.

I knew it was gonna be cold when those tiny ducklings hatched out so I was hoping that mom would keep them inside where they had lots of room to run around but temps were slightly more reasonable.  Everyone is doing great, mama Lumi takes her fuzzballs out for a walk about every other day.  But the babies are still unable to climb the long ramp back up to the Muscovy Loft so I usually have to gather them all in a bucket before it gets dark and plop them back inside under the heat lamp.  After spending the entire day trekking all over the barnyard in 40 degree temps, the kiddo’s are pretty pooped and make a big puppy pile under the lamp -  totally crashed out.

Here are some pictures of their outing on day 2:

When the babies can't make it all the way up the ramp into the Muscovy Loft, Mama Lumi frets back an forth up and down the ramp to show them how, then gives up and gathers them under her to keep them warm until help arrives.  She doesn't like me to pick up the babies but everyone is happier when they're back inside after a long day in the cold!

Here's a little video of them exploring the barnyard:

Today Buffy hatched 10 of the 15 eggs I put under her when she went broody (again!).  

She hatched out 6 Welsummer chicks in April (read about that here) and then in August she went broody again.  For a week I kicked her out of the nestbox each day and collected the eggs.  She’d run around the barnyard like she was supposed to until that night when she would sleep in the nest box.  I figured if she was so committed I’d order her more fertile eggs (remember, I have no rooster here).  So I ordered a dozen  from a fellow chicken keeper (Dipsy Doodle Doo) in Arkansas (Clovis Place Garden and Poultry) whom I met through BackyardChickens.com.  She was kind enough to put together a variety pack of colored egg layers of interesting looking birds and sent a collection of 15 eggs of Ameraucana, Silkies in a variety of colors, Naked Neck Turkins, and frizzles.  The colors of the eggs I received were really great!  There were tan, olive green, and two shades of blue.  

I can see that I have one Turkin because it’s the only chick without feathers on its neck.  The others are interesting colors but I’m not sure yet what I’ve got out there.   Once they’re old enough to sex I’ll figure out what to keep and what to sell and look forward to then finding out what color eggs I’ll be getting.  Very egg-citing!

Buffy just loves being a mom and she’s very good at it.  I let the other chickens out to free-range and close their access off to the henyard, then I open the broody box gate and let Buff take her babies out for a private scratching match.  That’ll work great until they’re bigger and she’s ready to bring them out onto the property.  For now they’re snack-size morsels for the Muscovy so I’ll keep them in a safe place until they’re old enough.  Wow… 10 more chickens!  Wonder how many will turn out to be roo’s?