guinea egg laying question

[wullus]

Hi! I have 6 guineas, 2 male, 4 female (I think.. haha, well I know theres at least 3 females anyway) and usually I keep them in with my other laying chickens.

It's starting to come onto spring and I still can't find any guinea eggs (I spent a little bit of my afternoon searching through long grass all over where they usually hang out, but to no avail). We've been letting ours free-range most of the time, but I've locked them in the coop with the chickens tonight.

My question is, will the guineas lay in the same nest as the chickens, if there are other eggs in the nest already? They've never layed in there before, but I'm just wondering if it could happen. The nest is quite open.

I'm not sure whether they ARE laying yet or not, but the woman who sold them to us said she found a nest of 20 eggs a few days ago, so I dunno what the go is...

Thanks!

 

[wullus]

anyone?

 

[ollievee]

I don't have chickens, so I can't answer your question. All I can say is that guineas do share nests with other guineas. Also, I looked and looked and had other people looking for nests on our property and it was like they just showed up overnight with 20+ eggs in them. I have no idea why that is. Good luck!

 

[inthesticks]

They can be VERY good at hiding their nests. If they are laying in the coop where the chickens do you should be able to see the difference, the guinea eggs tend to be speckled & a bit smaller than standard hen eggs. You could always keep them in the coop/run for a whole day to see if they do lay & where & then try to encourage that spot. Another idea is making teepee like setups in your run. they can be made easily with 5 2x4 pieces and two pieces of plywood. (I will be making some in a few weeks) It's almost endless to what they will do themselves in regards for nest making & placement. Good luck with it all, let us know if you stumble upon some nests or if keeping them cooped for a day works

 

[wullus]

Hey! Thank's for your help!
We've let ours free-range now, and they've pretty much returned to wild state haha, so it's hard to get them to go into the coop they've no doubt been laying somewhere, but as to where... I have no clue. I'm waiting for one of them to go broody and then I'll be able to see the male standing around where she is, then I can snatch & grab (gently of course)