First Egg Candling

[PeepsCA]

That is definitely a developing egg, and I see veins!

The tilted/slanted air cell kind of concerns me tho, all my eggs' air cells are normally centered at the very top. Could have been the way the Hen laid it, could be from shipping, hard to say.

Good luck with your nest hunting, hope you find a BIG pile of eggs. How many Guineas are in your flock, and what colors do you have?

 

[JLeigh]

No luck finding the nest. I searched/followed them for 2.5 hours this morning in the Southeastern heat, humidity and in the woods with bugs, poison ivy, blackberry bushes and briars. Came to the conclusion - - it ain't worth it. I'm too old for that, so I'm going to pen them for a few days and see what happens. Maybe I'll get an egg or two. If I do, I'll leave them in for a few days more. There is no finding the nest with these guys.

Does anyone have suggestions on what I might put in the run that would encourage nesting/egg laying? I realize she'll lay them wherever she wants, but maybe I can make something that would simulate, to some degree, a safe woodsy nesting area. (I'm dreaming big, I know.)

 

[prairie]

I would sure like to know too. I am trying to watch my guinea hens and see where they are nesting but can't find them. I let them free range but may put them in lock down again. My problem is that i have my chicken hens and guineas in the same coop and run.

 

[JLeigh]

We have the same problem prairie. We're going to build another coop onto the opposite end of the run for the guineas. Some people have the luck of having their guineas and chickens coop together - - not me, or you. Oh well. PeepsCA told me, and I'm going to follow her advice, that leaving the guineas in the coop for a few days should mean a few eggs. I hope so. I'm about to try it. If all goes well, I'll keep her penned with the male until I get 5 or 6 eggs unless that takes over a week. Then I'll just be glad for what I have. It's breeding season, so I figure if she spends more time in the run, I can make up for it when the season is over and she can free-range everyday.

I have enough room for them all (10 chickens, 2 guineas) but the g's do need their own pad. (Is that outdated?)

I want "home-layed" guinea eggs. Selfish? Guilty!

 

[prairie]

JLeigh,
I have decided to keep all the chickens and guineas locked in the run until about 3 in the afternoon -- after laying time and then all can run free until 8:30 when it starts to get dark.

Should have been doing that all along. I have 5 guinea eggs that I have found but don't have a broody chicken hen yet so am patiently waiting. I have a little cornish banty who has her own separate little nest she made and she has 6 eggs in there so I am hoping that she starts going broody and I will swap her eggs for the guinea eggs.

 

[PeepsCA]

We have the same problem prairie. We're going to build another coop onto the opposite end of the run for the guineas. Some people have the luck of having their guineas and chickens coop together - - not me, or you. Oh well. PeepsCA told me, and I'm going to follow her advice, that leaving the guineas in the coop for a few days should mean a few eggs. I hope so. I'm about to try it. If all goes well, I'll keep her penned with the male until I get 5 or 6 eggs unless that takes over a week. Then I'll just be glad for what I have. It's breeding season, so I figure if she spends more time in the run, I can make up for it when the season is over and she can free-range everyday.

I have enough room for them all (10 chickens, 2 guineas) but the g's do need their own pad. (Is that outdated?)

I want "home-layed" guinea eggs. Selfish? Guilty!

I forgot to mention Leigh... if your Hen lays her egg by noon, there's no reason to keep her in all day... they can go free range the rest of their normal day (as long as they come back in easily each night!). I use this routine with my breeding flocks every day, it works great... and sometimes if I let them out too early before they have all laid for the day I have a Hen anxiously pacing and buck-wheating her tail feathers off, all stressed out because she wants back in the pen to lay her egg, lol (My Turkey Hen even did this yesterday while I was working in the garden, she about pushed me over to get in the gate, lol. She was havin' a big ol' bird anxiety attack, lol).

One other thing I've observed in all my egg collecting years is that my Hens don't always lay at the same time each day... they lay a little later and later each day until they skip a day then start over early the next day, and so the cycle continues.

You can store your oldest egg up to 10 days (I write the laid date on each egg in pencil), but sometimes you can get away with up to as long as 14 days if the eggs are stored in a cool (55°-60°), dark place (not the fridge), and you want to make sure that you tilt/turn the eggs once or twice a day... so really you don't have to stop at 6 eggs if you don't want to, and your egg collecting routine is going well.

Besides, if you hatch too many... you can always sell the extra keets!

 

[JLeigh]

Been gone for two days, and boy did I miss this forum! I felt like I was missing everything, and when I got home I saw that I missed a lot. Think of the fun I'll have catching up!

Anyway, Thanks all for the advice about keeping the female in the pen until the afternoon. That makes WAAAAY too much sense for me to have thought of it on my own. What a great plan! Sometimes things are just too black and white for me - like, in the pen for days, or out of the pen for days - when there is a happy medium. That pleases me, I know it will please my female guinea ("George"....don't ask...) and it's a win/win.

Oh, happy healthy fertile home layed guinea eggs are in my near future. I feel a STRONG addiction coming on. I blame it on Peeps.....

 

[PeepsCA]

LOL sure, blame me... there are WAY worse enablers on here than me!!!!!

 

[JLeigh]

Okay, Peeps, whatever you say....(LOL).

So, last night we got home about 10:30, which of course was too late to let the guineas and chickens out, so they were cooped up from Monday night to Thursday a.m.

When I let them out this a.m., I found two beautiful guinea eggs in the middle of the chicken coop - - just sitting there. George (the female) had sort of scratched around in the coop, moving all the straw aside and then layed the eggs on the straw outside the circle. What's up with that?

I'm going to put some chicken eggs where they were to encourage her to keep laying there, right?

I picked them up, rinsed them carefully, and they are now in the incubator. Hope they're fertile. These are some fresh eggs!! I have no idea what time she layed these eggs, so I'm going to experiment with time. Tomorrow I'll check for eggs every hour or so to see what time she's laying. When she's layed the egg, I'll let her free-range. It must be before about 2:00 in the afternoon, because they are back in my yard at about that time.

I'm frustrated that I can't find her nest....all those little keets.....But it could be anywhere on 16 or more acres of heavily wooded property that isn't all mine.

Am I thinking right? Any suggestions?

 

[PeepsCA]

LOL... where do you think I learned how to enable? HERE!!!

Sounds like George is ticked off that you made her lay her eggs in the coop, or confused, lol... so she just laid her eggs where ever in her anxious/frustrated/ticked off state. You can put chicken eggs in there if you want to encourage her to lay there, but like I said, she can't hold them in for ever... kinda like when ya gotta go ya gotta go, lol. Regardless of if you put some chicken eggs in there or not you will have to lock her up to get her to lay in there tho. This morning when you let her out she probably went right to her nest and laid another egg in her hidden pile! And remember she might lay a little later every day, skip a day then start over early.

If I were you I wouldn't rinse the eggs before setting them. If they are dirty don't set them, wash them put them in the fridge and eat them for breakfast, lol, but rinsing the eggs can force bacteria in thru the pores, and your eggs can/will get infected and die at some point during incubation. When a Hen lays an egg it comes out with a natural somewhat antibacterial coating on it... some call it a cuticle, some call it a bloom... whatever it is, it's a good coating of Mother Nature's custom egg sealer and IMO it's best to leave it on if possible.

Also, you're creating a staggered hatch fiasco by immediately setting just the 2 eggs... you will need to raise the humidity for your first batch of eggs to hatch, and that could drown the 2 eggs you just added. If the 2 eggs don't drown you're still risking hatching a lone keet that will be in a brooder all by it self after it hatches because the older keets you will hatch from your first batch will have grown like weeds in the week or 2 of hatch time difference, and they will trample the new baby... so you might want to try to collect a few more eggs before you set some again so that whatever hatches has a buddy or 2. I store mine in an egg carton in a cool dark place (like the closet, garage or basement) and I elevate one end of the carton up on a book or 2, and try switch ends twice a day (basically you are turning the eggs). You can store and tilt them until your oldest egg is 14 days old, but setting a batch by the time the oldest eggs is 10 days old usually results in a better hatch rate.

An option for dealing with staggered hatching is to get a 2nd incubator (without a turner) and use it just for hatching, then you can set how ever many eggs you want in one incubator whenever you want to (as long as you have room in the turner, and move them over to the 2nd incubator when it's time to raise the humidity and lock down for 3 days til they hatch. Just be sure to mark the eggs and keep track of what's do when (this is what I do, using 4 incubators to continuously incubate my eggs, and then I use a 5th one as a hatcher... and every time I pull out eggs to go into the hatcher I replace them with fresh eggs... and on goes my hatching addiction, lol).

Anyway, at least you know your girl is laying! Hopefully you find that nest before she decides to go broody and stops laying... cuz then you will be hunting for her and the eggs ... and hopefully find them before a predator does.



I walked by this full time free range Hen 20 times (feeding my horses twice a day) before I found her... I knew she had been sitting in the eggs for well over a week, so I after I pushed her off the nest and counted the eggs I decided to leave her be on her well hidden 9 eggs. I figured being so close to the barn and all the activity at the barn that a predator wouldn't bother trying to get her, but something snatched her AND the eggs the NEXT ***** NIGHT!!! Nothing left in the nest but a couple feathers and a big pile of Guinea poop

Poof gone, just like that. After that I stopped letting my Hens go broody on nests in the bushes/tall grass, I hunt down their eggs.