We now have a grand total of 12 goslings and our male/ female ratio is now 7/5 so we cannot really complain at that. The last three eggs don’t look viable any more: we aren’t able to see any movement and there has been no internal pipping so we think that might be it for this batch! 12 out of 15 is actually a great result and we must confess to being fairly smitten with the goslings. They are wondrously vocal and very inquisitive and very pretty! We ended up 'helping' quite a few out of their shells in the end due to the egg membranes drying out too much and so trapping the birds inside the shell. The reason they dried out was because we lifted the lid of the incubator which instantly destroyed the humidity level, even though when we did it, it was just for a few seconds. We lifted the lid the first time to remove the empty egg shells from the first two that hatched two days ago and then with the hatching being so spread out, we also had to lift the lid to put the first ones under their heat lamp. You can leave hatchlings in their incubator for up to 48 hours as the egg yolk absorbed into their abdomen will provide sustenance for that long but we like to move them as soon as they are fully dry if we can. It also frees up space in the incubator for the later hatchlings (same as removing the egg shell). In an ideal world you want the birds to hatch for themselves as it strengthens their neck muscles in particular as they work to get out of their eggs. However, when the membranes dry due to human intervention, we feel it is only right we intervene at this final stage too.
Touch wood, all twelve look okay, even at this stage, you can see the stronger ones and the weaker ones too. We had one with slightly splayed legs but they seem to be correcting themselves.
The next stage of course is to see if our broody Indian Games is interested in taking all/ some of them on!!!