Canada Goose Egg Addling

Migrant geese upped sticks and left right on schedule around the Spring Solstice on March 20. So now we're in the next stage of the resident Canada goose year - the nesting season.

Many frustrated property owners call for a stringent reduction in the number of resident geese. Hence the new-found demand for addling programs. GeesePeace calls this "population stabilization." Others call it population control. Some even call it pre-term abortion, or euthanasia. Whatever your thoughts on the issue, the addling of Canada goose eggs has become a major weapon in the business of Canada goose control.

Just what is egg addling? In simple terms, it's the practice of treating Canada geese eggs to prevent their further development. Old-fashioned, fleet-of-foot Nuisance Wildlife Control Operatives (maybe we could just call them practitioners of lethal means of pest control?) prefer the sleight of hand involved in pricking the eggs with a giant darning needle to destroy the sacks inside. Many do this whenever the eggs were laid.

GeesePeace and the US Humane Society deem this inhumane. They prefer the gentler method of dipping the Canada geese eggs they find in buckets of water like those medieval trials of witches. If they sink, the eggs are coated in corn oil which prevents oxygen getting in and gases escaping. The embryos do not form. The female sits out the remainder of the term. She understands her clutch is not going to produce; she leaves the nest.

On the other hand, if the eggs float, there is air in the sacks (meaning they have been incubated for 14 days or more - long enough for the embryos to be classified as viable); the eggs must be returned to the nest to allow them to hatch.

GEESE OFF! has no dog in this hunt, but if you were to strap us down and pull out our finger-nails to give an opinion, we would tell you to follow the GeesePeace protocol. We might think some of their ideas are haphazard and counter-productive, but we think they are completely right on this issue. Many of our customers have seen a marked decrease in the number of geese on their properties where we have been following this protocol for a number of years. Some even have no geese at all.

For insight into how egg addling is done, we suggest you watch the new episode of "In Dogged Pursuit of Geese - Egg Addling" on our website.