What is the gestational period for a goose egg?
The incubation period does not start until all of the eggs are laid. This is why it is so wrong when people see a nest with only one or two eggs in it and they take them, thinking that the mother abandoned them – in reality, she just has not finished laying all of her eggs. Since all of the eggs, from the first one she laid to the last one she laid, start incubation at the same time, they will all hatch at about the same time. This is an advantage, especially to precocial birds (birds that are not naked and helpless at hatching, and whose parents do not feed them), like geese and ducks, as they can all leave the nest together. Waterfowl benefit from this, as all of the birds can enter the water at the same time.
