Expert: Roger Lederer - 4/4/2008

Question
I found 2 abandoned goose eggs, there was a nest of 4 but two were cracked open (some neighborhood kids scared off the parents and cracked two of the eggs open. The embryos (from the broken eggs) appear to be about a little under 1" long. I have the remaining two in a homemade incubator made from a website's instructions. It's a still air with a heat lamp. I was keeping it at a steady 99F but when I left the room I came back 1/2 hour later to feel the eggs were really warm, almost hot. I put my digital thermometer and turned the lamp off quick when it reached 105F (the mortality temp for eggs) and here the lamp had spiked after being steady for so long so I switched lamps and have it back at 99F, hygrometer isn't reading anything under the lamp with the eggs so I can't tell if the humidity's right. I put a small basin of water with tin foil in the incubator to add humidity but as I said, I can't get a reading off my Fluker's Digital Thermometer/Hygrometer. I don't know if maybe by some chance they're still alive.... I raise ducks, not geese, I tried candling them and I can't tell because goose eggs are so thick so I don't know what I'm looking at. Any advice or opinion whether they could still be alive or not would be helpful, thank you.

Answer
If you can't candle them, then I don't know how you would tell if they are still alive. I suspect, however, if there were only 4 eggs in the nest the geese had not started incubating yet and they should still be good. So keep doing what you are doing and see what happens in a few weeks. They should get lighter as they lose water if they are alive. Or get a very strong light to candle them.