Okay, looks like I’m joining the August hatch, though my hatching contribution is kind of lame... Those in the June-July hatch a long may recall my giant guinea nest with five co-nesting guinea hens. When I found dead keets, we kicked off the hens and ended up hatching 50 eggs in our incubator. After cleaning up the mess, I felt bad for the guinea hens who were desperately trying to get back into the locked coop. I had thought that they’d abandon it due to my disruption, but I decided to put 9 old eggs I’d collected the previous month back into the nest. To my surprise, all five hens returned to the nest. Three broke their broodiness and abandoned it within a few days, but two remain... Last Sunday, I decided that I needed to see whether there were new eggs, so I kicked the girls off and checked. In addition to the eggs I’d left before, there were four more eggs, two clear and two with young moving embryos (1 week?). After much discussion (I’m a ridiculous softy. Once I’d seen the moving embryos I couldn’t stand to put them in the fridge!), we put the two eggs back in the nest and will give them another chance at motherhood. I doubt both will still be broody by the time they hatch, so we are giving the broody guinea gig another go with a small number of eggs and a smaller number of hens! We will call the expected hatch date: Aug 18, or thereabouts!
