About African Dewlap Geese
The day they arrive
Shipped Goslings will be hungry and thirsty when they get there but take your time. Starting with a few sips of body temperature water. Do Not let them drink to fast giving them small sips this will be the first time they have introduced water to there system. Make sure it is not to cold or hot.
Keep them warm
Make sure before they arrive you have a warm place for them to rest they need a place they can get into that is around 90% for the first week. (you can lower the temperature about 10 degrees every week.
After about 20 Min of first sips.
You can let them have free choice on water and start introducing food. For the first few days. I offer Purina Flock Raiser crumbles moisten with a little hard boiled egg yolk and a sprinkle of Brewers yeast over the top. By day 3 I have a full feeder off to the side with dry crumbles they slowly ween themself s off the wet food
Baby's Grow quickly
This is a picture of 3 days to 3 weeks
A good protein Flock food (18-22%) will work for the next 4 weeks but always remember to add Niacin by giving them brewers or nutritional yeast. There bones are growing quickly. You can also add niacin in there water by dissolving 1/4 of niacin tablet into a gallon of drinking water. (make sure the niacin tablet is not a timed release)
What to know about feeding greens
When you are ready to start adding greens, grasses or peas to there diet is up to you. HOWEVER make sure the have a free choice of baby grit or chick grit available at all times. When MaMa goose raises her babies they start on greens from the first time she takes them out but the key is out. They have natural grit all around them.
Here come the Feathers
Once you start to see the pins stick out of there wings is a great time to lower your protein you want to do that my changing to a lower protein feed duck pellets work at 17%. To high of protein can cause angel wing when the feathers come it. High protein feeds get there feathers to come in quicker than they should and the bone hasn't grown fast enough to support the new heavy feathers. From this stage on 16-17% protein will keep them on track.