How goslings are bred and raised

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Little goslings grow quickly and gain weight well, and therefore two-month-old birds are already sent to slaughter. The live weight of a bird at this age, depending on the breed, ranges from 3.5-4.5 kg, therefore breeding geese is a profitable and profitable activity. Goslings can be bought on the market or bred independently, forming a parent flock. In order for the young to grow well, not get sick, you need to take proper care of it and feed it well.

Goose

How to choose goslings

If raising goslings at home is your first and new experience, it is best to buy ready-made chicks. This can be done on the market or on a specialized farm. The second option is better, as there is a better chance of buying healthy, vaccinated young animals of the corresponding breed. When choosing goslings, you should pay attention to the following nuances:

• Choose active chicks that react vividly to sound and movement.
• Prefer medium and above average goslings.
• Examine the butt, it should be dry. If the bottom is wet, the goslings are most likely sick.
• Take a closer look at the plumage, whether there are bald chicks in the brood, with stuck together down, etc.

It is best to buy weekly goslings, then there are fewer losses. By 7 days they were sufficiently strong, they tolerate transportation well. From the age of 7 days, chicks can be safely released into the street. It is imperative to ask the owner how best to raise the goslings, to find out what kind of feed he fed the birds. Before buying, you need to prepare a room for the chicks, food. You need to learn everything about little goslings or collect as much information as possible.

You can buy goslings in many farms. Some of them specialize in certain breeds. For example, the village of Avdon in Bashkiria breeds a Hungarian breed. There are Landskie goslings in the Moscow region. Nizhny Novgorod specializes in the Gorky breed, and fighting geese can be found in Tambov. How much do five-day-old chicks cost? On average, you can buy them for 200-600 rubles apiece, depending on the variety.

Self-breeding goslings

Experienced poultry farmers prefer to breed goslings on their own. This is more profitable from an economic point of view, even when taking into account the need to maintain a parent flock. It is possible to breed young animals both naturally and artificially (in an incubator).

Formation of the parent herd

To get serious about breeding geese, you need to form a parent tribe. For this, 3 selection of young animals is carried out with an assessment of weight gain and exterior:

• Among the diurnal goslings, the weak are rejected, which are little in weight, poorly developed, with obvious defects.
• At 8 weeks of age, weight gain is assessed for all goslings reared together. Among the geese, you should choose those who have 10% more weight than the average for the brood, among the geese - not lower than the average
• At 26 weeks, the final assessment takes place, individuals that do not correspond to the breed, weak, with defects in conformation, and low weight are rejected.They are sent for meat.

Geese reach sexual maturity at about 8-9 months, depending on the breed. The parent flock is placed in a pen separate from the rest of the birds. The diet of these birds should be balanced. It should contain three times as many geese as geese. It is best to keep each family (1 gander and 2-4 geese) in a separate enclosure so that the males do not fight. The average life span of a laying hen is 3-4 years. Gusakov is kept for 5-6, or even 8 years. The herd should contain 26% of first-year-olds, 24% of second-year geese, 23% of third-year-old geese, and 27% of young stock.

Natural incubation

Geese are good mothers, hatching goslings is not a problem for them. The nest should be prepared in advance, about a month before the start of laying, which most often takes place in late February or early March. The diameter of the nest should be about 40 cm, the depth should be 10 cm. Several geese can be carried in one nest. On the 6-7th day after laying, an ovoscopy is performed. Only fertilized eggs are retained. You cannot leave too many eggs in one clutch, the optimal number is 10-15 pieces. If there are more of them, the testicles are distributed between different geese.

The female, ready for incubation, begins to pluck feathers from the breast and line the nest with them. She appears less often in the aviary, mainly during feeding. A young goose is given a test, eggs are laid for 3 days, which are not intended for incubation. If the female stays in the nest for a long time, does not leave it when a person appears, but frightens off with his hissing and flapping of her wings, you can put her on the clutch. The best hens are considered to be females of the second and third years of life. Eggs should be checked by ovoscopy by 11 and 27 days. Discard unfertilized and dead embryos. Hatching occurs in 29-30 days.

Artificial incubation

When there is no brood, you can hatch the chicks in the incubator. Growing such goslings is also easy. The incubation temperature should be within 37.5-37.7 ° C. Humidity is maintained at 60-65%. Good ventilation is necessary for hatching chicks, embryos absorb 12 times more oxygen than adult birds. From about the 14th day, the eggs begin to be cooled for 30 minutes a day to 29-30 ° C. Goslings hatch for 29-30 days, there is no need to help them get out of the egg.

If there is not a single goose or incubator, you can put a duck on the egg, which incubates the ducklings, or put it under the chicken. A good mom is made from turkey. True, she will not be able to bring the chicks into the water. It should be borne in mind that broiler breeds, mulards, Peking ducks are bad hens and mothers - they cannot be trusted to care for the brood after birth, as well as incubation of eggs.

Care and conditions of detention

Small goslings should live in a warm, dry environment immediately after hatching. In the early days, a large box will work well for them. Its area should be 1 m² for 8-10 chicks. From day 20, the goslings need to be given more space, 1 m² for 4 individuals. If the young were hatched naturally, the chicks are taken to the house by the first two days, and then planted under the goose. A young female can hatch a brood of 10-15 chicks, an experienced one - of 20-25 chicks.

Caring for goslings in the first two weeks after birth is very important. The chicks that survived this critical period are likely to grow up safely under any conditions. First of all, the conditions for keeping goslings provide for maintaining the correct temperature:

• The first 6 days after the chicks hatch are 28-30 ° C.
• By 6-10 days - 25 ° C.
• By 10-15 days - 20-22 ° С.
• By 15 days and beyond - 18 ° C.

The temperature is reduced gradually, a table may come in handy for the marks. They carefully monitor the chicks: if they squeak and huddle together, it means that they are too cold. Hypothermia can trigger colds. When the temperature rises, the goslings drink a lot, they practice bathing in drinkers.

To maintain a constant air temperature, chicks can be placed in a brooder, a special heated rearing machine. The device greatly facilitates the care of young animals. If desired, you can build it yourself. The room where young animals live should be regularly ventilated, but drafts should not be allowed.

No less important when keeping goslings is the light regime. In the first 5-7 days, it should be around the clock, then gradually its duration is reduced by 40-60 minutes, until the daylight hours become 14 hours. They use lamps that are covered with a grill so that the ducklings do not get burned. A litter of straw and hay is placed on the floor in the poultry house. You should not lay sawdust: chicks can eat them. The litter changes as it gets dirty.

Weekly goslings begin to be released outside for 30 minutes, daily walking time is increased. Two-week-olds can already be on the street almost all day. Three-week-old goslings move to the aviary. If a quick slaughter is planned, from 3 weeks youngsters are kept in a pen or placed in cages, intensively fattened. It is best to slaughter the birds 70-80 days before molting. If this is not done, you will have to send poultry for meat at the age of 120-130 days.

Feeding goslings

It is very important to choose the right food for the little goslings at home. They start eating from the first hours of life. At this time, they are given:

• chopped and steamed peas;
• steamed oatmeal, pearl barley, barley, millet;
• bran from wheat;
• boiled egg;
• cottage cheese;
• chopped greens and grass (onion feather, clover, nettle, quinoa, plantain, timothy).

From the third day of life, you can add root crops (carrots, pumpkins, zucchini) and cake to the diet. Five-day olds are given fresh food waste, bread. The ratio of wet feed (green grass, root crops) to grain should be 1: 1. Concentrated feeds are given in the following ratio:

• grain - 2 parts;
• bran - 1 part;
• legumes - 1 part;
• cake - 1 part.

You can buy ready-made compound feed for ducklings, and not cook them yourself at home. They feed weekly goslings every 3-4 hours, in two weeks you can switch to 4-5 meals a day, monthly goslings are fed 3 times a day. All food should be at room temperature, crumbly, so that the chicks do not clog their beaks. There shouldn't be much difference between daily menus.

In order for the young to grow up healthy, vitamins must be added to the diet. It is best to buy special chick supplements. To improve digestion and replenish the lack of minerals, a container with fine gravel, crushed shells, and chalk is placed near the feeder. These additives can be added to the chicks' menu from 7 days.

It is important that all goslings have access to water. To do this, install 1-2 drinking bowls for 10 heads. You can tint the water slightly with potassium permanganate, this will prevent the occurrence of intestinal infections. For the same purpose, it is advised to give the chicks water with an antibiotic to drink. There is no need to bathe the goslings: in the first days they can easily do without a reservoir.

Diseases of goslings

Raising goslings is not always easy. Although the immunity of these birds is strong, they still get sick from time to time. Goslings are especially sensitive to pathologies in the first two weeks of life, which is why proper care, regimen, feeding and maintenance during this period are so important. If at least one of the recommended conditions has not been met, the survival rate of the young falls sharply.

Goslings can pick up pathologies of both infectious and non-infectious nature. Among the infectious pathologies, the most common are:

• aspergillosis;
• salmonellosis;
• paratyphoid;
• bacterial and viral enteritis;
• colibacillosis;
• pasteurellosis;
• coccidiosis;
• pullorosis;
• whirligig;
• helminthic invasions - echinostimotidosis, nematodes;
• defeat by cutaneous parasites.

Among the diseases that are not infectious in nature, there are:

• rickets;
• conjunctivitis;
• diarrhea associated with a lack of vitamin B;
• cloacitis (inflammation of the cloacal mucosa associated with a lack of vitamins);
• cannibalism;
• blockage of the esophagus;
• stomatitis;
• goiter catarrh;
• yolk peritonitis;
• avitaminosis;
• poisoning.

Below we describe the main signs and causes of diseases. But it is better not to diagnose yourself, but to contact a livestock specialist or veterinarian who can help with treatment. This is especially important for novice poultry farmers who do not have sufficient experience, who cannot cope with diseases on their own, which can lead to the death of birds.

Disease symptoms

Bowel disorders are most common in young goslings. The feces become liquid, takes on an unusual shade. For example, with salmonellosis it becomes green-gray, like swamp mud. The infection quickly spreads between chicks, they become lethargic, stop eating, and after a while and drink, walk poorly, often sink and sit on the bottom. If diarrhea is associated with vitamin B deficiency, convulsions and paralysis join the symptom. The goslings stop growing, their feathers are tousled, their reaction is inhibited, they stagger and fall. In the terminal stage, they roll over onto their backs and die.

With fungal aspergillosis, symptoms may mimic those of a common cold. Chicks sneeze, wheeze, breathe heavily, they have snot, birds do not eat well, drink a lot and do not grow. Pathology occurs when the goslings are kept improperly, high humidity in the room, can cause the death of the entire livestock. In a humid room, goslings have an increased risk of contracting colibacillosis. It is manifested by an increase in temperature, increased thirst. The litter is white, frothy, sometimes with a greenish tinge.

With various vitamin deficiencies, goslings lag behind in growth, go bald, become lethargic, and lose their appetite. Rickets, or vitamin D deficiency, leads to softening of the beak and bones, frequent fractures, and weakness. Chicks with this pathology often limp, breathe heavily due to poor work of the heart muscle.

With a lack of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and minerals, cloacite occurs. The cloaca falls out, the mucous membrane turns red, ulcers and erosion appear on it. Sometimes, with vitamin deficiencies, the chicks crush, peck at each other and even eat.

If chicks are fed too dry food, their goiter can become clogged. In such cases, the birds stop eating, suffocate, sometimes blood or foam comes out of their mouths. Euphorbia, dope, stale food can cause poisoning. With conjunctivitis, the goslings' eyes fester, a tear constantly flows. In case of parasitic diseases, the chicks itch, they have baldness, and skin particles peel off. Pathologies arise from dirt and dust. To prevent eye inflammation, the birdhouse must be kept clean at all times. You can see how sick goslings look in video and photos.

Treatment of diseases

If symptoms of the disease occur, the birds should be drunk with medications. The dosage depends on the drug and the pathology itself. To treat bacterial infections, goslings are given antibiotics, sulfonamides, and other antibacterial drugs. Most often used:

• Baytril;
• Enroflon;
• Metronidazole;
• Levomycetin;
• Tylosin;
• Furazolidone;
• Tetracycline;
• Baycox (effective for coccidiosis);
• Trisulfone;
• Penicillin.

For diarrhea, saline solutions are given for feeding sick chicks. If the gosling is drunk well, diarrhea can be cured even without large doses of antibiotics. It is important to constantly bed new straw or grass in the box to keep the infection from spreading. Trichopolum is used to treat fungal and some parasitic infections. With vitamin deficiency, multivitamin preparations are given - tetravit, trivitamin, chiktonik, fish oil. The same drugs are used to prevent the lack of minerals and vitamins. It is also important to review the diet of the young.

Vaccinations are carried out to prevent infections. Vaccinations are given to goslings a month. The vaccine is available in veterinary clinics, in specialized poultry farms.It is important to remember that any medication must be recommended by a veterinarian after the correct diagnosis has been made. If there is no way to see a doctor, the instructions for use for the medicine will come in handy. It must be read carefully, and then the drug should be given exactly with the given dosage. Recommendations for use on the drug are given for a reason, ignoring them can lead to death for the entire livestock.