Advice on what to do with a broody guinea? Update!

[PeepsCA]

If there is more than one Hen in the flock... that may have been a shared nest. Or it may have been an older abandoned nest that the current Hen had decided to start laying in, depositing her eggs on the pile with the others. It's really common in my flocks for the Hens to share nesting/laying spots. It's hard to say tho, Guineas are so secretive about laying/nesting. Usually my Hens don't lay more than 30 eggs each before they go broody, so I kind of doubt those were all eggs from the Hen you found on the nest, unless for some reason she had started laying there but left, and then she returned to lay there again some time later.

The spots and lumps and funny things in some of the eggs... (ewwies, lol) may have been that some of the oldest eggs had started to develop a while back, but were abandoned... or if it's been warm enough the sun may have started developing them, but they went cold and stopped developing.

I would keep tabs on that Hen and her husband... even tho it is late in the season, she may still be laying eggs if she wasn't broody. She'll probably choose a new spot tho (I'd still go check the old nest tho).

Glad the birds enjoyed then salvaged eggs. Great nutrition for them, I hard boil a lot of eggs for my flocks (and my dogs), and I just crush/crumble them up and put them in a feed pan for them, shell and all. My Peahens love them too.

 

[AnnaLease]

Thanks for all the info! One more question... what does guinea mating look like? Because I don't think I've seen any going on! They chase each other around alot, but I've never seen them "connect"? Do they do it in the coop at night? Or do they go off in the woods for some privacy? By the way, I have 5 girls and 8 boys (I think).

 

[PeepsCA]

I've mostly witnessed my Guineas "doing the deed" while they are out free ranging, only once or twice in the pens or coop... and believe me, it's super quick, (you blink, you miss it, lol). Usually the male rushes at the Hen and if the the Hen is receptive she'll kind of hunker down flat so the male can hop on and take care of business. I have also seen the Hen give the male a very subtle body language signal that she's ready to breed too (and of course he's usually more than happy to oblige, lol). Then they both walk off like nothing just happened, or the Hen might fix her feathers a little lol

I don't think in all the times I have witnessed any of my birds breeding that the males even grabbed ahold of the Hens neck or back at all, and I have never had any Hens with missing feathers like happens with Chicken Hens (not sure of this is the norm, or if I just have a bunch of gentle males in my flocks, lol).

 

[Fenika]

Even when my pet guineas (in years past) were chasing each other like crazy (the males that is), I never saw hens with damaged feathers. I've seen birds that are fighting pull a few feathers, but nothing major. I've also seen large flocks of guineas from Longwood Gardens to random farms and never saw the kind of feather damage I see chickens get. I am fairly convinced it never happens with free range birds or almost never happens. Even my current jumbo flock, which is unfortunately mostly penned, don't have any visible feather damage (but I have seen a few little feather pulls, particularly a few weeks ago when I had a lot of males)

 

[PeepsCA]

My full-time penned flock has 10 Hens/4 males and tho there was tons of aggression and tension there weren't ever any bare backed Hens in there either. Just some broken/tattered flight feathers. I'll have to pay more attention to all the speed-breeding next spring (in all my flocks), just to confirm for myself if the males grab ahold of the Hens at all or not. Most of the time I was trying to figure out which Hen and which male I was actually seeing do the deed, then my mind immediately wandered off into what color keets might hatch from that pair, lol