Can/ Should I move her? UPDATE....Keets are arriving!

[PeepsCA]

Ugh... sorry it's not turning out so well, very sad for the eggs/keets, but that's the typical outcome usually unless the Momma is confined in a controlled area where she feels safe to hatch out her keets. Predators and even dogs and cats can really easily smell newly hatched keets and hatching eggs... so maybe something spooked her off the nest and raided what it could. If that's the case you are lucky to have 4 keets, the Momma and 2 eggs!

Hope you get those keets and hope those last 2 hatch, they need to stay warm and moist to hatch tho. Might be a good idea to get a cheap/used incubator just as back up plan for her next batch (if you take away her keets she will most likely start laying again in a week or 2).

 

[GuineaMama]

Well, we weren't able to catch her or the keets last night. She's VERY protective and won't let us get anywhere close. She hid out with them all night somewhere and didn't return to the nest under the porch, but we saw her and the keets this morning out in the grass right after it rained. The remaining 2 eggs didn't hatch either. So I guess from here we just watch and see how she and the keets do.

Peeps, has your Mama Guinea hatch hers yet?

 

[PeepsCA]

Sorry about the 2 that didn't hatch.

Keets in the wet grass will kill them quick, if they get wet and chilled, they fall behind, can't keep up and will die within hours... or quicker if a predator hears their distress peeping because the Hen has left the wet weak keets behind. She'll focus on who's with her, not who's left behind/missing. If you wait and see what's going to happen, odds are she won't have any keets within a couple days.

Don't be scared of a cranky Hen, you pay the feed bill not her! I'd chase her away with a broom, let the keets scatter and have one person hold her back with the broom while the other person snatches up those keets.... your plan to keep them all on your screened in porch for a while is a good one. They really need to be confined to a safe place for a couple weeks when they are more hearty, able to keep up better and more of her maternal instincts kick in.

She may do ok with then from this point on, but with the rain and wet grass.... ugh. I wouldn't risk it. I'd really hate to see you post that you've lost them all in a few more days

I ended up taking the 11 eggs from my Broody Guinea Hen and putting them in my hatcher, they started hatching last night and the rest are working on hatching today. I needed a few more keets to fill 2 orders for this weekend, both customers changed from wanting 12 keets each, to 15 each... and I only hatched 28 keets out of my last hatch and there's a few I am keeping from this hatch (as usual, lol), so I needed those eggs. I gave her 15 warm eggs that are a week or so behind the 11, so she just has to camp out on them a week longer. (Unless I end up taking those too, LOL). She accepted them no problem. She's doing a great job incubating tho, and it's an eco friendly power source lol.