Guinea fowl hatching!

[susierw]

Hello! I have 4 Guinea fowl, 3 boys and 1 girl. Shes about 5 months old and yesterday we found her sitting on 15 perfect little eggs! She slept on the ground on top of the eggs, and has been on and off all day...will the eggs still hatch if she is intermittently incubating them?
And once they are born how would one go about catching them? It's winter in Australia and I think they would die from the cold OR from a predator! They free range and sleep in trees usually!
Also how many eggs do guinea fowl lay a day?

 

[PD-Riverman]

Hello! I have 4 Guinea fowl, 3 boys and 1 girl. Shes about 5 months old and yesterday we found her sitting on 15 perfect little eggs! She slept on the ground on top of the eggs, and has been on and off all day...will the eggs still hatch if she is intermittently incubating them?
And once they are born how would one go about catching them? It's winter in Australia and I think they would die from the cold OR from a predator! They free range and sleep in trees usually!
Also how many eggs do guinea fowl lay a day?

If your guinea is staying on the eggs(except for short breaks) she is "setting". Before she starts Setting She would lay 1 egg per day in the nest. Once she starts setting she will stop laying. With good luck she would be hatching in about 26 to 28 days(they should be fertile---3 males). If your guinea free-ranges and you want to save the chicks----you better get your incubator set-up and collect the eggs---hatch them, raise the babies in confinement until they get almost grown----then you will have a better chance of them surviving. Good Luck

 

[susierw]

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately our chickens are too young to be broody and we don't have an incubator so we thought we'd leave it to nature...and nature won. Something came in the night and ate all 15 eggs...no evidence left what so ever, no idea what took it!!

 

[PD-Riverman]

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately our chickens are too young to be broody and we don't have an incubator so we thought we'd leave it to nature...and nature won. Something came in the night and ate all 15 eggs...no evidence left what so ever, no idea what took it!!

Sorry that happen, which is the reason for the later part of my post above. It happens often.

 

[ludwing]

Hello! I have 4 Guinea fowl, 3 boys and 1 girl. Shes about 5 months old and yesterday we found her sitting on 15 perfect little eggs! She slept on the ground on top of the eggs, and has been on and off all day...will the eggs still hatch if she is intermittently incubating them?
And once they are born how would one go about catching them? It's winter in Australia and I think they would die from the cold OR from a predator! They free range and sleep in trees usually!
Also how many eggs do guinea fowl lay a day?

best wishes

 

[susierw]

We got them as month old chicks in December for a Christmas present last year so she's very young that's why we were so shocked..at first we thought she was sick when we saw her lying down for so long! Thanks I will take your advice next time if I find the eggs again..unfortunately another animal made a meal of these eggs I'm in Australia so maybe the Guinea fowl over here mature at a younger age!

 

[ludwing]

yes it is having a guinea hen laying in early stage. a perfect luck. the flock we have usaully begin laying after a or some time after.... although some folks have the layingperiod beggingin from as early as 5 months old...