Goose Incubation Guide

Rachele Paulus shares detailed information for goose incubation.
Story and photos by Rachele Paulus
We are Fly Away Home Farm, nestled in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. We specialize in breeding Sebastopol geese. The name of our farm was inspired by a major motion film, “Fly Away Home.”

We fell in love with the threatened species Sebastopol breed and wanted to help increase their population.
Our Sebastopol geese are Maui, Lucy, and Marley. They are the best pets we ever had! It has been a unique and amazing experience raising them with my children. Our geese are part of our family.
During each breeding season, my daughters, Milania and Meadow help with hatching their eggs in incubators. My children know the importance of imprinting on humans and handling the goslings from day 1 — because of this, our goslings usually grow up to be friendly and well-adjusted geese. Our customers frequently comment on how much they love their goose’s personality!

Hatching Guide
Goose incubation isn’t for beginner hatchers. So many variables affect a successful hatch. Geographical location, altitude, and household climate play a big role in incubator humidity levels because relative humidity levels are different everywhere. Incubator brand, proper daily turning of eggs, goose genetics, fertility, shipped and non-shipped eggs all affect a successful hatch. There is no “recipe” or one way to hatch goslings.
These are my methods and techniques for incubating goose eggs: I use two forced air incubators, one for the duration of the incubation and one for hatching. I have two hydrometers calibrated in each incubator. My household climate is also monitored and my incubators are set up and running before setting the eggs. I use printable charts for tracking and are shared here for your use.

Overview
Here’s an overview of the most important steps so you can get an idea of what will be needed. More details and charts follow to help you do a safe, precise, step-by-step incubation.
Temperature and Humidity
My goose incubation hatching kit is also available for emergencies. I prefer to rotate my eggs by hand 4 times a day with daily cooling and misting. The temperature is 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit and I keep the humidity between 35% and 40% for the duration of incubation.
On day 25 my eggs go into partial lockdown, and I stop rotating, cooling, and misting. On day 26, I transported the eggs into another incubator with humidity increased to 45 to 55%. The humidity has increased gradually and not all at once at this point. I wait for the internal pip to increase humidity by 70% or higher.
Pipping
The “cue” for the internal pip is the “dip down” of the air cell. It’s important you know about the goose breed and egg anatomy. The air cell placement and embryo development at this stage will determine some of your choices. I candle the eggs and listen for internal pip. Once the pip is confirmed, the eggs go into another incubator “lockdown” for hatching. I don’t allow more than 24 hours to go by without poking a safety hole if an external pip hasn’t happened. At this stage, I make sure I’m home, and I have spent many nights sleeping by the incubators. In my experience, talking to the eggs to encourages hatching and it’s fun to see the goslings respond by wiggling the eggs! I believe this is when imprinting starts because they hear our voices.
If you want to understand more about the timeline of goose incubation, follow this Egg Incubation Timeline.
The Nitty Gritty
Set up
Research your breed because some eggs lose moisture faster than others. I set my incubator at 99.5 F degrees and between 35% to 40 % humidity. Always run your incubators at least 24 hours before putting eggs in. I use two hygrometers per incubator, my printable charts are displayed to help navigate the incubation process, hatching kit, and distilled water for spraying and cool down.

My household climate is also controlled to help maintain humidity stability. I use forced air incubators – The Nurture 360 is excellent for the duration of the incubation period, but once they go on lockdown, I transfer them into a bigger incubator for hatching. (goslings can’t stand up in the Nurture 360). Farm Innovators and GQF 1398 are great for lockdown/hatching stages.

Once you have collected your eggs, candle them to check that the air cell is attached and there are no cracks or dents in the egg. I do not wash my eggs, occasionally ill wipe them off gently if they are covered in mud.
Mark your eggs with a pencil: X on one side and 0 on the opposite side for daily rotations. You can also give each egg a number ID or alphabet ID. This helps me keep track. Always allow your eggs to adjust to ROOM temperature before putting them in the incubator.
Geographical location, altitude, and household climate play a big role in incubator humidity levels because relative humidity levels are different everywhere. Incubator brand, proper daily turning of eggs, goose genetics, fertility, shipped and non-shipped eggs all affect a successful hatch.
There is no “recipe” or one way to hatch goslings. These are my methods and techniques for goose incubation.
Humidity
How do you know what to set your humidity at? There are two ways to determine this. You can weigh your eggs (there are online guides for this method) or you can keep track of the air cell development and growth. I love tracing the air cells, it’s less time-consuming and I learn a lot more. If the air cell is smaller than what it should be at a stage, that means your humidity is too high. If the air cell is too big, that means humidity is too low.

Your humidity and temperature may fluctuate when you put your eggs in, to avoid this spike, you can put infertile eggs in the incubator for the first 24 hours while temperature and humidity adjust.
Day 1 starts 24 hours AFTER you set eggs in the incubator. Do not touch or rotate eggs for the first 6 to 7 days.
On Day 6, check for fertility, and trace air cells.
On day 7, start rotating 4 to 5 times a day, misting and cooling for 10 minutes once daily. On day 10, trace air cells.
Day 14 trace air cells.
Day 18 trace air cells.
Day 20 INCREASE cool down time to 15 minutes.
Day 22 trace air cells.
Partial Lockdown
By the 24th to 27th day (depending on the breed) the air cells should be a good size and slightly slanting downwards. With my Sebastopol eggs, I stop on Day 25, no more rotations, cooling and misting. Trace air cells.
When putting the eggs back in the incubator, make sure the air cells are facing up. I wait for them to internally pip BEFORE increasing humidity to 70%. The cue for the internal pip is the “dip down” of the air cells.
You will see the eggs wiggling as the gosling gets into the hatching position while causing the air cells to increase in size. Upon candling, you may see “shadows” as the gosling maneuvers into the final hatching position.
Lockdown & Safety Holes
Once you have confirmed the internal pip (upon candling you will see the beak in the air cell) you can transfer the egg into your hatcher, another incubator for hatching. Temperature can be lowered to 99 degrees F and humidity is increased to 70%.

With goslings, it’s at this stage that many die after internally pipping because they fail to externally pip before oxygen runs out in their air cells. If I feel that they are delayed, I do not hesitate to assist and intervene. Especially when hatching a rare species, and we do our best to mimic nature, but we are not mama geese and we are artificially incubating.
With a sterile pin or tiny drill, I enter the center top of the air cell.
Candling is done before to make sure the gosling isn’t directly there. A tiny hole is made 2 to 3 millimeters (no bigger to prevent drying of the membrane). This “safety hole” has saved the lives of MANY healthy goslings over the years. I never lost a gosling again during this crucial stage. This allows fresh air to enter so the gosling can breathe and rest before finishing its hatching.
I talk to my eggs because it encourages hatching and I believe this is when imprinting starts. Goslings are challenging to hatch, but they make up for it because they are so much fun to raise!
* Tip: upon opening an incubator to intervene, the humidity will decrease but a trick that many experienced hatchers do is get a very warm (almost hot) wet washcloth or paper towel and put it in the incubator and it will blast humidity
My Success
I owe my goose incubation success to Laura Huey and Barbra Rudolph of The National Sebastopol Geese Association, for their deep knowledge and guidance. Most of all Matt Kmetetez of Breezy Knoll farm, my mentor in geese hatching and friend.
After They Hatch
Here’s an easy guide to keep track of what the goslings need after they hatch.

I have some sebastopol eggs I recv’d thru mail. As expected the several have detached air cells- some partial, one fully with some albumin… But they have life in them. I have watched several YouTube videos on what to do- saw one suggested to just leave in upright position until lockdown. this seems the most logical, or am I off? I will be using your guide for most of the hatch, however, any quidance and advise for deveiation for the circumstances would be sooooo very helpful!
I only have 5. With 3-4 looking viable for sure and a less that 50% hatch rate on mail order… Not much room for play. Thank you again!!