New Life, New Noise!

A couple of people have asked me how the gosling is getting on. He is very sweet and has become very attached to our 15 yr old son - or perhaps it's the other way around! I took him out of the incubator after 24 hours; our house is always on the colder side of no heat at all and I thought the incubator would at least keep him warm. I then transferred him to a box and put him next to the Everhot where again, he was snug as a bug.

However, he has grown in both strength and stature at an alarming rate. I realised the box was too small when I caught him trying to jump out of it. In addition, the noise...oh the NOISE! Cheep, Cheep, Cheep, Cheep. All day, all day. And I do spend a lot of time in the kitchen! So yesterday we bought in the pen we made for baby chickens and put him in there in the playroom - next to the kitchen so I can still hear the noise but it is one step removed from the oven! He wasn't pleased at all but seems to be resigned to his new home. In the meantime, the second egg has started to hatch and perhaps tomorrow or Friday there will be two of them in there together - I just hope the bigger one doesn't bully his baby brother!

One thing that is worrying us - and if anyone has experience we'd be grateful for advice - is when to put them outside and introduce them to water. I feel that for the next month it will be too cold but I'm well aware that if they had a goose mum they'd be wandering around already and probably following her onto the moat. So, any ideas? Max thinks we should start with the bath but I've told him if I catch him in the bath with a real live goose I'll post a picture on here!