Geese behave much differently than chickens. First, you'll never be able to sneak up on her at night. They can see almost as well as during the day. Second, if by some chance you are able to get close to her, she'll still know that you're there. It will cause all sorts of commotion, scattering both "her" hatched babies and those that you've saved. You'll take the chance that they'll all get lost or chilled. Geese are extremely intelligent, and have social behaviors that are so much more advanced than that of any chicken flock. Probably one of two things happened with this clutch. Either she is an inexperienced mother, and her instincts were satisfied by hatching the first few, even though more were coming, or, two, there were other females who had access to her nest, and they layed after she began setting, so there are actually multiple eggs with varying hatch dates. I have had good luck both ways, introducing newly hatched goslings to a mother even several days after her true brood had hatched, or also introducing young started birds to the group when they were several weeks old. I've even had my flock take in newly hatched babies when there was no female setting. I would introduce them all to the entire flock first thing in the morning when you have a few hours to watch closely that everything is going OK. In most cases it will take only a minute or two before you know if they'll accept or reject them. I've never had well adjusted (non pet) males cause any problems with babies in my flock. The only time that there were issues was when I had too many males, and squabbles between the males who were in the group and those who were kept out have sometimes inadvertently caused problems with young chicks that got caught up in the fighting. Even that has usually worked itself out in a few minutes. All this happens in a pen of almost 3/4 an acre, and I'm sure that plenty of space is a factor in allowing everything to work itself out.

Rachel, Great pics and commentary. It's awfully nice of you to go slogging through the woods to capture these pics while I just sit back & enjoy! For some reason "my" Peewee has not returned for the last 2 years. I miss his plaintive pee-o-wee. They also have a lovely song but I would only hear it very early in the am, usually just before dawn. I saw a young thrasher yesterday with his stubby tail-so cute! Blue birds should fledge over Memorial Day weekend so maybe I'll get to see them. Chickadees fledged already & I'm not sure when the Tree swallows are due. They kept starting & stopping their nest & I lost track of when the eggs were laid! Thanks for the pics, Susan

mlkbskt (Margie, right?) I am cheating a little to get these pics. Got a tip about five years ago (from a really good photographer) to get better pics of the Blues if you offer mealworms, to put a branch or something they can land on before going to the feeder. So I used to find a nice large branch in our woods and pound a fence post in next to the deck and attach the branch to it so they would land on there before going into the feeder. My mealworm feeder is a wooden jailhouse style one that my husband made (this keeps other larger birds like BlueJays and Robins from eating all the mealworms) and it is clamped onto a wooden 3step ladder. I used to set it just on the deck but the Robins figured out if they pushed really hard they could get into the feeder, with it being on the ladder they cannot do this anymore. This year I decided to do things a little different and put the branches in large flowerpots with vining plants in the pots then I just went from there and came up with this.... I really like this on the deck. All the flowers make the ugly feeder look much better. So in my pictures the birds have landed on these branches on the deck. The feeder is out about 16 feet from my dining room window so I just stay in the house and snap away. Donna

Debbie 321 Ok debbie you made me go look up the definition of a SLR, didn't like it, Anyway there are two types of cameras: One is a point and shoot,they are small, limited in accessories, and you can not change the lens on them, though some will zoom out there quiet far and some you can get add on lens, generally a lens that screws on the end of the camera lens, generally enlarging the image to twice the size. They are cost effective and some are really good, I don't have one but have been thinking of getting a good cheap one to take landscape pictures. The other one an SLR, is a Single reflex Camera, that's the official definition, basically what you see through the viewfinder is what you get. The image comes through the lens and is bounced off a mirror, when you look through the view finder you actually see the mirror, and what you see is what you get. I've always consider an SLR as being a camera that you can take the lens off and put on another lens, but under the definition there are some point and shoot that could be consider an SLR. Most SLR's you can buy a bunch of accessories for them. The only thing about them though is they cost about 3-4 times the cost of a point and shoot. I hope that explain a little about what an SLR is. Let me add there are some remote controls that use the same technology as a TV remote, an IR light, which you can't see. You have to point the remote at the camera as you do a TV, They are ok for cameras when your looking at the front of camera, but are a waste of money if you've got the camera pointed out a window, and your behind the camera. Almost impossible to get that IR beam to reflect off of something and hit the camera sensor. That's something I learned the hard way, believe me I tried positioning mirrors in front of the camera, never could get it just right. Keith