First season guineafowl hatched

[TexasTurkeyMama]

Yesterday the first of two wild guinea nests hatched. The female is on her first nest. She chose a live oak trunk to collect the eggs and set on.

We were wondering what kind of mommy she would be. Apparently she is an inattentive one because we found the hatching keets exposed and ants attacking the keets still in process of hatch. We collected five keets and carried them to the brooder. At sunset the runaway mom returned to her ruined nest. Today in the brooder we have four keets.

 

[SmiYa0126]

They aren't the best mothers. They're originally from countries in Africa where it's never damp, if you get heavy dew the keets will get chilled because she'll probably take them out into it.

 

[TexasTurkeyMama]

I meant to say the nests were wild and in the places the females selected.

 

[allenw]

Chick survival is not on the mother Guinea's mind. Like has been said they are from a dry area and they're rearing technique reflects this.

I always kept them penned, gathered eggs and incubated them when I was hatching Guineas to sell. The chicks are very hardy once started and feathered out. I started them in a brooder with quail feeders and waterers with out any real problems I can remember.

 

[TexasTurkeyMama]

Hatch plus three days: We had found five keets on Friday and put them in the brooder. Two were ant-bitten and one expired the next day. The other ant-bitten keet has bite wounds on its closed eyelids. It has not opened its lids at all. I have the poultry wound spray and have been treating the keet three times daily. I have also been bringing it drops of water with a pipette. I have also added a bit of mashed cooked egg yolk to the solution. Though the keet has access to the chickstart in the brooder I suspect it has not tried to eat. Today the other keets are nearly twice the patient's size.

If anyone has any suggestions for me I would be grateful for the feedback.

 

[TexasTurkeyMama]

The second ant bitten keet expired overnight.

 

[TexasTurkeyMama]

The second guinea nest had two pipping eggs today and one very bad tempered guinea hen sitting on them in the second field nest of her choosing.

 

[TexasTurkeyMama]

Of the two pipping eggs, one hatched and one still pipping. Oh, the agony of waiting and watching...

 

[TexasTurkeyMama]

In the predawn I had the still pipping egg returned to mother guinea fowl. The other egg hatched and my Superkeet is under the heat lamp, waiting for more clutch mates to join HER.

Now, at the end of the day and after a nice rain we went out to check on the nest in the field. We were hoping to bring more keets with us, but the pipping egg had hatched and we saw no keet under mommy guinea, only the empty shell. No more pippers among the mute eggs.

Superkeet in the garage under the heat lamp needs a flock to belong to so I proposed to my son as we returned empty handed that we could check Tractor Supply for some chicks to add to Superkeet's flock, OR "we could just pop the single keet underneath the guinea hen in the field". And dear son replied, shocked: "Mom! She lost the first one.."

And this is how poultry math was born.