Eeny meeny miny moe, a nest full of rotten eggs.

My brown china goose, Athena, finally managed to "hatch" one of her eggs. She had been sitting on her nest for over 5 weeks. Brown china eggs are supposed to hatch after 28-34 days, Athena had been sitting on the nest for over 40 days.
About a week ago my sister was feeding the geese. Part of feeding the geese was putting some food in the brooder for Athena. Keely called me over to the brooder and it was rather obvious why. It stank. I pried the protesting china off her nest and forcefully removed her from the brooder. Somehow she had managed to break one of her eggs. It was full of what appeared to be green goo and it smelled, well, like rotten egg. I removed her other eggs and put them in the compost as I was sure that they where rotten too. Next I opened the lid to the brooder house so that it could air out and closed the door so that Athena couldn't come back to her nest.
She is very skinny from spending all that time on the nest (they hardly eat at all when they are setting), but she seems to be eating again. She seems to be rather aloof from the rest of the flock most of the time but at least she's off the nest. I think what happened was that although the eggs where fertile when she layed them it was also very cold outside. The eggs must have froze before she started setting on them. Maybe you'll have better luck next year, Athena.
<()>