This is a true story. A little odd maybe, but true nonetheless. This article is a bit of a departure from the normal pet-related veterinary articles on this site, but hopefully it will enlighten viewers about the lives of geese, chickens, egg incubation times, and other fun fowl facts!

It all started a couple of days before New Year's Day 2003. I was horrified to watch a coyote attack and severly injure two of my beloved Chinese Brown geese just three hours after I let them out of the enclosed hen house to go to their pond. It was broad daylight, and I was beside myself seeing this happen right before my eyes. Normally, my two dogs would have alerted me and kept the coyote at bay, but it was a snowy, slushy miserable day out there (but a type of day that geese love!) and I had the dogs in the house.

Long story short, I humanely euthanized both geese (via injection, like a dog or cat) due to their extensive injuries. This was, of course, very hard -- one of the geese was 6 years old, raised her from a gosling. Only one goose from my little flock remained, Lydia. She was spared because she had become "broody" and was sitting on her nest inside the hen house and refused to go out.

I never wanted to have 'one' of anything with birds, because they are social, flock animals. One is a lonely number! Normally, I pull all of the eggs from the nests (called "breaking up" a broody hen or goose) because my flock was complete and once a goose goes broody, they become kind of catatonic -- very docile and often refuse food and take in very little water, as they sit on the nest. They pluck all of their downy feathers on their chest to line the nest, become very thin and weak, and I just try to avoid that situation from developing. So with a heavy heart, I pondered what to do with Lydia. I quickly decided that letting her sit on this nest would be a good 'distraction' upon losing her goosemates.

I picked her up and checked the nest. There was one goose egg, likely fertilized the by the gander (male goose) who had just perished. She had also 'stolen' one of the chicken eggs that had been laid near her. I let her sit on both of them. For a while at least. I even retrieved one of the goose eggs that I had in the refrigerator, just to give her something else to sit on.

I kept busy by building a completely enclosed aviary. Hated to do this to my flock of 15 chickens, but couldn't take any more loss! Meanwhile, Lydia was happy sitting where she was.

I was unsure about the chicken egg -- would a goose be too heavy? Would the incubating

temperature be too hot? I decided that it didn't matter. Lydia was content for the time being.

I tried to get her to eat and drink daily, but to no avail. Sometimes she would take a tiny sip of water, but that was it. Knowing that the chicken incubation time is about 21 days and the goose incubation is 28 to up to 34 days, I kept track of time so that I could check on the nest. I have had a goose sit too long, only to find smelly, rotten eggs under her. At the three week mark, I began checking the nest daily. I checked one day only to find the two goose eggs. What happened? As I considered where the small chicken egg could have gone, out fell a very tiny bantam chick from the deep down of Lydia's body! This was a surprise to me. This solves the question if a goose body would be too heavy or warm to hatch a chick!

Like Mother, Like... Chicken --->