“On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me -
6 geese a layin“
Day 6 and here comes a wagon with
wooden crates full of geese-
And what a noisy racket they are putting out!
Note:
These aren’t any old geese, they are laying geese.
That means mating season started a month before.
It also means these were most likely European Geese because of the time of the year.
(But we knew that, didn’t we!)
I just kind of thought a goose was a goose and maybe similar to chickens only bigger.
I have discovered there’s a lot more to geese than I imagined!
First, geese don’t lay eggs year ‘round.
They lay eggs for about 5 months,
BUT
there are a lot of factors involved.
Egg-laying depends on variables like air temperature, diet, health of the goose, how much light they get, body weight of the goose, age and humidity.
Whew!
Can you tell I’m a city girl?
So, we get 6 laying geese.
We have to provide the correct ambience to get any goose eggs. And we wait for eggs.
In one study I read over the course of 150 days of peak egg laying, each goose averaged
55 eggs!
Multiply that by 6 and…
That’s a lot of potential goslings to take care of.
But, not all fertilized eggs hatch.
The actual number of eggs per goose is more like 30-50, and that is for the entire year.
Let’s play a little now
as my head is stuffed full of
Goose Facts - like
A group of geese on the ground is called a ‘gaggle’
BUT
a group of geese flying is called
a ‘skein’.
What is so fascinating about dot to dots?
They remain a popular pastime.
Here we can learn how to draw geese:
After drawing six geese I bet you will be pretty good!
Here are some charming folk-style geese made from felt:
Want to doodle to relax?
Here is a great line shape to do that.
Just fill in between the lines.
I hope you have had fun with this sixth day of goosey fun.
