Breaking or Tricking a Broody Guinea Hen?

[Zephyr0]

Hi all,
So my one of my Guineas has been broody for about 45 or so days.
Her own eggs, which numbered around 16, had all failed due to her inexperience I'm assuming.
I've tried to break her from it a couple times with no success. I've tried lowering to body temperature and cutting her off from the area in my coop where he nest was.
She just goes right back to finding eggs to sit on!
Now, we have been thinking about getting a few more chickens as we only have a couple and a good friend of mine has eggs in and incubator due to hatch in the next few days.
I hear it works for chickens, but what are your opinions on trying to sneak some day old chicks under her in the middle of the night?
Id try my luck with the eggs that are ready to hatch if it were possible to get them under her without jeopardizing the chicks but they are too far away to chance it.
I have no experience doing such a thing so I'd like to pick your brains if I can!
Thanks in Advance

 

[Lovem all]

I had a broody guinea who actually became so depressed after we took a clutch she stopped talking (little did she know they were in the incubator). If she is realyl consistant maybe sneak them in at night on day 19 but my guin hen was really smart about her eggs and very sensitive to how they're touched. And just because they are broody it does not mean they'd be a good mom. I had a broody hen eat 2/3 babies and that's cause we got there in time for the last one.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Hi all,
So my one of my Guineas has been broody for about 45 or so days.
Her own eggs, which numbered around 16, had all failed due to her inexperience I'm assuming.
I've tried to break her from it a couple times with no success. I've tried lowering to body temperature and cutting her off from the area in my coop where he nest was.
She just goes right back to finding eggs to sit on!
Now, we have been thinking about getting a few more chickens as we only have a couple and a good friend of mine has eggs in and incubator due to hatch in the next few days.
I hear it works for chickens, but what are your opinions on trying to sneak some day old chicks under her in the middle of the night?
Id try my luck with the eggs that are ready to hatch if it were possible to get them under her without jeopardizing the chicks but they are too far away to chance it.
I have no experience doing such a thing so I'd like to pick your brains if I can!
Thanks in Advance

Wow she is dedicated! Mine break if I remove their eggs from their nest, or if they hatch keets. My recent broody guinea was afraid of her hatching eggs and crushed or shrink-wrapped half of the eggs, so you might lose chicks if you try to let her hatch them. If you try introducing the chicks, I’d try while she is awake and chicks are kept separated so you can watch for aggressive vs mothering behavior. I don’t think that guineas sleep soundly enough to try slipping chicks under them.

I wonder if you could do something like a broody breaker cage for her? Maybe not full blown broody breaker cage, but just separated from eggs to sit on for 3-4 days?

 

[Zephyr0]

Oh wow. Echo is incredibly docile and gentle so I can't imagine her harming chicks or keets but hey you never know and that's a great thing to keep in mind thank you!

Also I did have her separated from the nesting area for about 3 days I have a slide partition on one side of my Coop where I would keep Older keets that I had hatched that were not part of my main flock as to protect them until they were old enough to join the confusion!
Also She doesn't care even if I pick her up right out of the nest she has no complaints at all just swapping her failed eggs out like I had originally done was not difficult.
However The reason I thought to do it at night was so that maybe the chicks would nestle under her and the Peeping would make her believe that she had succeeded and she would start to mother them come morning.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Oh wow. Echo is incredibly docile and gentle so I can't imagine her harming chicks or keets but hey you never know and that's a great thing to keep in mind thank you!

Also I did have her separated from the nesting area for about 3 days I have a slide partition on one side of my Coop where I would keep Older keets that I had hatched that were not part of my main flock as to protect them until they were old enough to join the confusion!
Also She doesn't care even if I pick her up right out of the nest she has no complaints at all just swapping her failed eggs out like I had originally done was not difficult.
However The reason I thought to do it at night was so that maybe the chicks would nestle under her and the Peeping would make her believe that she had succeeded and she would start to mother them come morning.

Wow, she sounds unusually docile! I hope that you’ll let us know how it goes!!!

 

[Lovem all]

Wow thats a supper tame guinea. Mine were tame not as much as your by the sounds of it. I say go for it then. Also if you have any tips on supper docile guineas I'd love to hear you out. Mine were friendly but were a tad violent in general. Also echo is a great name for a guinea

 

[Zephyr0]

Quick update and another question honestly.
Four chicks have hatched from the chicken eggs under her. And she's actually happily mothering them! I'm really happy to see however her mate, Piper, will instantly attack them the moment one of them comes out from under her causing her to fight with him.....
These two have always been Inseparable and I know it's something to do with the babies that's got him acting like this.
One chick was actually fairly early so its been much weaker than the rest and it seems to have gotten stepped on a few times in fighting.
I put in a separate small brooder hoping that it recovers.
As for Piper i currently have him separated from the rest. However when they're separated all they do is Scream until we put them back together.
So I'm worried about causing her anxiety well she's trying to Mother these chicks.
So now my question is should I take them away from her and raise them in a brooder so that I can put the two back together or keep them separated and just let them scream it out ? Lol

 

[R2elk]

Quick update and another question honestly.
Four chicks have hatched from the chicken eggs under her. And she's actually happily mothering them! I'm really happy to see however her mate, Piper, will instantly attack them the moment one of them comes out from under her causing her to fight with him.....
These two have always been Inseparable and I know it's something to do with the babies that's got him acting like this.
One chick was actually fairly early so its been much weaker than the rest and it seems to have gotten stepped on a few times in fighting.
I put in a separate small brooder hoping that it recovers.
As for Piper i currently have him separated from the rest. However when they're separated all they do is Scream until we put them back together.
So I'm worried about causing her anxiety well she's trying to Mother these chicks.
So now my question is should I take them away from her and raise them in a brooder so that I can put the two back together or keep them separated and just let them scream it out ? Lol

Two options, keep him isolated but in a see through pen near her so that they can see each other or take the chicks away and brood them separately.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Quick update and another question honestly.
Four chicks have hatched from the chicken eggs under her. And she's actually happily mothering them! I'm really happy to see however her mate, Piper, will instantly attack them the moment one of them comes out from under her causing her to fight with him.....
These two have always been Inseparable and I know it's something to do with the babies that's got him acting like this.
One chick was actually fairly early so its been much weaker than the rest and it seems to have gotten stepped on a few times in fighting.
I put in a separate small brooder hoping that it recovers.
As for Piper i currently have him separated from the rest. However when they're separated all they do is Scream until we put them back together.
So I'm worried about causing her anxiety well she's trying to Mother these chicks.
So now my question is should I take them away from her and raise them in a brooder so that I can put the two back together or keep them separated and just let them scream it out ? Lol

Since your goal was to break her broodiness, I’ll bet that her broodiness will be more or less done when there are no chicks or eggs left in the nest. I’d be inclined to remove the chicks and brood them yourself before they become any more attached to her or are injured. Maybe pull the chicks then lock her and her mate out of the coop for a little bit to give her time to reset? I don’t know, you clearly know your birds really well so that might not make sense to you...

 

[Zephyr0]

I apologize for taking so long to respond we've had some things come up.
Anyways with the 2 remaining chicks we have everybody's a big happy (If not odd) little family for the most part.
Echo has mothered these chicks very well considering being a Guinea haha
As for Piper, After acclimating to them behind a wall of hardware cloth, he is right at home with them and even protects them.
So it seems to have all worked out for the most part!
I did mention there were 4 of them originally one of the to that we lost however was premature and against my best efforts did not survive. The other had not fully absorb the yolk sac before hatching and had been very healthy but deteriorated very quickly.
We now have 2 very healthy little chicks and judging by the feather growth and tail growth I'm wondering if we ended up with a Roo however im not sure and may be too early to tell! haha