Life in a Zoo The Real Thing: Geese on The Pond

Emden and Toulousegeese on our pond.

Our home and compound sat on about three acres.  We really didn’t have that much room for all the animals we eventually housed.  After people began donating more and more geese to us, we realized that plastic wading pools simply would not take care of their needs. See the post on Where is Sweetie's Husband? to see a picture of a goose in a wading pool.

Life in the Zoo: The Fictional Version - Where is Sweetie’s Husband?

Fritz, Sweetie's mate

In the book, Sweetie is apparently without a mate. That is a problem because without a mate, a goose may lay eggs, but they will not be fertile. None will hatch.  Cleopatra has a mate named Tut. Other geese in the story have mates, but they are minor characters and are not mentioned.

Life in a Zoo: The Real Thing- Ping Comes into Our Life

It just so happened that we had a veterinary student from Auburn University volunteering one day. While she was there, one of our setting geese had a heat stroke and went into seizures.  Although quick action saved her life, her nest had been destroyed.

“What a shame,” I shook my head as I cleaned out the nest and tossed the crushed eggs into a trashcan.  I picked up an egg and examined it.  “I think there must be a baby inside, but the shell is cracked.

Life in a Zoo: The Real Thing - How a Goose Hatches Her Eggs

I was amazed at how many eggs my geese were laying.  Several geese laid their eggs inside an abandoned doghouse. Apparently, it was prime real estate.

We were such novices in those days, and it was long before we ever owned a computer, much less had access to the internet.  So our resources on learning about our critters was limited. 

What I didn’t understand was that I should have taken some of those eggs.  But we left them all.  It didn’t take long before there were so many eggs in the nest that the goose couldn’t possibly reach the ones on the bottom, much less turn them several times a day as was needed.
 
Usually a bird will lay only one egg a day, depending on the species. Emus will lay one egg every three days. The bird will not begin to incubate the eggs until the nest is full. For some species, that may be two or three eggs, but for some birds, like the emu, they may have fifteen or twenty eggs in the nest.  Geese will usually lay about eight to ten.
 
There is one of God’s wonderful mysteries. So if a goose lays an egg a day for ten days, why is it that they all hatch on the same day? 
 

Why a Goose Story?

Over the years, people have told me I needed to put some of my funny animal stories into print. Several ideas milled around in my head, but I really didn’t know that much about writing.

I had participated for year in AuburnUniversity’s Novel Writing Workshop taught by Mary Moran. In this class, we were required to write ten pages per week and share them with the group for critiquing. It was an invaluable class, but my suspense novel manuscript was spotty and had too many missing parts. However, I did learn a bit about character development.

About the Author

Back in the 1990’s my husband Joe Crocilla and I began rescuing cast-off animals that needed a home.  Before long, we housed, loved, and cared for some 150 birds, mammals, and reptiles.  Eventually, we became the smallest U.S.D.A. licensed Petting Zoo in the State of Alabama.

This was a labor of love. Most of our animals were rescue animals, either domestic animals that had no place to go, orphaned wild babies needing TLC, and occasionally a legal home for illegally captive wild animals confiscated from their owners.