Early on saturday a clutch of goslings hatched, four lovely little scraps that seemed to be doing well, until mid afternoon when it became clear that one was a lot smaller than the others and was being trodden on, getting chilled and generally ignored by the adults.
So, we fished it out, checked it over, decided that it seemed ok but was probably the last egg laid and effectively a bit less developed than the others, but its mum didnt want it back. Feeling fairy sure it probably wouldn't make it through the night, we reckoned we could at least make it cosy, so it was bundled up in a box with a towel and a hot water bottle.
After deciding that the barn would be too cold and the dogs and cats would pester it in the house, I took the box into the van with me for the night, reckoning I could check it easily if needs be and put the box on the bed next to me for added insulation.
Well, this tiny wee weak gosling lasted about an hour before deciding the only place it wanted to be was under the duvet with me, and nothing would persuade it otherwise, so I spent the entire night with a day old chick wedged into the crook of my arm with the duvet pulled up over us both
Noisy little critter too, hardly stopped peeping all night long.Anyway, its now called Duvet and by the time I left on sunday it was doing really well, visibly much stronger and alternating between a goose play pen made out of an old tin bath lined with turfs and straw, and regular warming cuddles from the spinners who all found that you can spin or knit quite well with a gosling having a snooze in your cleavage, it really liked prefelt too, that made a lovely nest.
Just goes to show, fluff turns up in the strangest places when you spend the weekend playing with fibre.
2 comments:
We had a gosling like that- a day late out of the egg, and its mum did not want it. My dad took care of it, holding it in his hands for 3 hours to keep it warm. It did not stop shaking with fear, until it fell asleep after 2 hours. When it woke up, it started to pick dad's beard, thinking it was grass. Donald, as the gosling was named, grew into a lovely pet goose who adored my dad (=replacement mum), could easily be handled, and did not know how to hiss because she'd never learned. (Donald was a "he" to us, until he started laying eggs...). We gave the other geese away and kept her, so she had us all to herself without her evil parents and siblings, lol!
Too cute. I had a baby Canada Goose once, we found it crossing a busy road, with mama no where in site... we took care of it for a couple while doing research and discovered if we found a mama with goslings she'd take it in no questions asked... so we took it (Maple, we called him) down to the local goose gathering place and put him where there were lots of mamas with babies in the water and he swam right out the the other geese and soon we couldn't tell him from all the other babies
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