A tiny miracle!

[BritinMO]

Hi all you guinea lovers! I've had quite a few hatches this year already from my guineas sucessfully sitting on nests around our property, the last batch hatched last Saturday under a huge brush pile, but me and hubby scooped up the babies as soon as Angry Mother left the nest with them

Noticed there were 6 eggs left in the nest when she wandered off into the woods, 3 of which were cracking - USELESS MOTHER - so we put those 6 under a heat lamp in the keet nursery with the other 14 collected babies. 3 hatched out within an hour or two.

The remaining eggs did nothing - no sign of cracking or any movement at all - so on Monday (2 days after the hatch!) I took them out from under the heat lamp as presumed they were not going to hatch - was JUST about to throw them away - and I hear a tiny tiny cheeping coming from one of them and a tiddly little hole in the shell! I've got a feeling that when they are just under a heat lamp the membrane gets dried out and hard.......(from my experience in the past) so decided this little fellow was going to need some help, so I cracked the shell and sure enough it finally emerged with a bit of a struggle and a bit more help from me!!! It was so tiny, eyes were still closed, didn't think it was going to make it - but it did! Its got curled toes.............but runs around with the other babies already and jumps up onto the bricks in the nursery..........the curled toes look a bit straighter this morning.........we have called this one Curly, and he or she will be a keeper, it comes into the house every day for a bit of special time with me - yes, I am completely nuts!!!!

I took a video from the hatching egg to it running around:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l897K5npX58

And here is a photo of the toes taken yesterday........they run around on an old towel in the nursery..........seems to cope great!

 

[aoxa]

You can correct those toes by the way

Very cute!

Such an encouraging story!

 

[BritinMO]

I did a bit of researching about curled toes and the splints and 'shoes' you can make................but to be honest, I have to be the most hopeless person when it comes to that kind of stuff dealing with such tiny objects i.e the tiny splints.........................this chick is tiny too, smaller than my usual keets and I was afraid of doing more damage than good!

 

[Fishbone]

There's another method using tape.
Search "Peepsca" for more info.

Lay a piece of tape sticky side up, put the foot on the tape, straighten the toes, and let it stick, then apply another piece of tape over it, pressing the tape to form around the toes.
Then trim off any excess around the outer edges.

When they are very young the bones are very flexible, it doesn't hurt them.
Within a few days the bones will begin to harden in that shape.

If you don't do it, they grow and set that way and I imagine they will have trouble roosting, running, walking, take off and landing!

 

[BritinMO]

Well Curly's toes look a LOT better this morning, they are practically straight now, hardly bent in at all thank goodness, so I am not going to mess with them..................................he/she is running around in the nursery with the others, and jumping onto the bricks in there, behaving no differently than the others at all - sooooooooooooo fingers and toes crossed, its going to be fine!!!