The Goose Won

Goosey had gone broody a couple weeks ago. After she sat on her eggs for a
couple days, I removed her eggs a couple at a time until she had no eggs
left. She sees the empty nest, and went about her normal routine.

No more broody goose, until Lucy decides it’s her turn. She took over
Goosey’s nest and sat on a couple more goose eggs.
Again, I let her sit for a couple days, then removed one of her two eggs
while she was off the nest. Then the hens got on her nest when she got off
for a break and laid a couple eggs, so now Lucy comes back delighted to find
a few more eggs in her nest. Happy goose.

I removed her eggs the next day when she was on break. She came back to an
empty nest, sat right down as if all was all right. After an hour or so, she
chased off the hen on the other end of the lower nest area, stealing the
hens nest and her eggs. Happy goose. Unhappy hen.

I later reached under the goose and removed the hens eggs.
Lucy wasn’t bothered by the activity and went on break.
While she was out, I fenced off the lower nest area so she had no nest that
she could reach.

In the meantime, a buff orpington decided it time to go broody and she sat
on the nest. I picked her up, replaced the fake eggs with real ones, and
marked them then put her back on her nest.
The goose saw the eggs, wanted them, and bit the hen on the neck until the
hen flew the coop.
But the goose could not get the eggs out and down to where she could sit on
them. I moved the fencing a bit so the goose could not reach the hen. Went
and got the hen, sat her back on the nest and calmed her until she settled
in.
The goose comes back into the coop to check things out.
It was like a Star Wars walker, coming in on two legs and honking at every
hen in the place like a blaster, hens flying all about the coop trying to
get away. Unhappy goose.
Then she saw the fence protecting the hen.

It was working. The goose could not reach the hen and the hen continued to
sit. I went back to the house and watched on the coop cam as the goose
attempted to fly up to the nest box. I thought that is not going to happen.
And then it did. The hen was gone and the goose sat on the hens nest and her
10 eggs. Ugh.

I went back down to the coop. I put the one goose egg I had back on her
nest. She looked at it and was still not having it. So I collected all the
fake ceramic eggs from the coop and put in her nest. Now she saw 7 eggs, and
was satisfied so she settled in on her nest.
This morning the broody hen settled in on her 10 eggs and almost all was
good. The rest of the hens would not settle in a nest because there were no
fake eggs to convince them this was the right place. So I put several of
yesterday’s eggs in a few nest boxes, the other hens jumped up and sat right
down. Happy hens, happy goose.
The goose won.