Sweet! My guineas used to take walks with me when they were young - now they are free agents!love, love, love my guineas. They decided to follow us on a hike around my horses track. 12 guineas, 6 dogs, 2 cats and 2 people...i am sure the horses would have followed but this part of the track is under construction and not accessible to them. View attachment 3006551View attachment 3006553View attachment 3006554
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And my mare Karma
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We are starting them to free range. But the snow has pushed us back a little. The guy in the tree wouldn't come down and spent all night up there it was 3°.
Good for you. If I was a Guinea I would rather take my chances in the free ranging world then spend my life in a coop 24/7/365.
love, love, love my guineas. They decided to follow us on a hike around my horses track. 12 guineas, 6 dogs, 2 cats and 2 people...i am sure the horses would have followed but this part of the track is under construction and not accessible to them.
Yes and it was terrible!
As bad as last years hatch, which I blamed on the failed turner. I got a new turner, which worked fine, and still a bad hatch. Trying to raise humidity to 45-50% instead of dry incubate as my next troubleshooting step.She's pretty, whatever it may be. I guess if the hatcher says it's lavender in person that's more a curate than a pic.Well my record keeping is kind of crappy, but I’ve been trying to figure out what I’ve changed that is giving me such poor hatch rates. First year was a hovabator still air styrofoam incubator. It was ancient with the wafer thermostat. I followed its directions and incubated about 50% humidity and turned by hand - great hatch, then a few more great hatches. Gave the incubator back to its owner and got a forced air hovabator with turner. Set temperature and humidity as before - awful hatch rate. This was when I started experimenting. Lowered the temperature and dry hatch next time (changed two things at once so I don’t know what worked) - good (but not great) hatch. So that’s when I stuck with dry hatching after that.
Last year was about like this year - latest hatch was 14/35 fertilized eggs. Last year I realized that turner was only kind of working, like it would turn some but not fully. I also noted that air cells seemed very large. So I thought both the turner and low humidity might be at fault. I didn’t want to change two things again so replaced the turner this year. Most of the keets that hatched this year hatched normally and at a normal time, 26-28 days after setting. But there were again many that failed to internally pip or died after internally pipping. Another that died after external pip, and when I tried to assist, it’s pip was covered with a concrete hard membrane, despite humidity being >65%.
With so many keets clearly dead in shell on day 28, I found one keet still alive and internally pipped but not externally pipped. I decided to assist and that’s been a huge struggle. When I opened the shell, keet already had a hardened and adherent membrane, even though this was my first time opening incubator since lockdown and raising humidity. I slowly got the keet freed from membranes - it was totally shrink wrapped and had vessels and yolk and… blah. It took about 12 hours of patient work to get it out of the shell, and then I regretted it because the keet just laid on its side and weakly peeped. I was sure I’d have to put it down the next day, but amazingly that keet has come around. I had to put it in a sling so it would get the idea of how to stand, and I’m treating it for splayed legs, but it’s finally strong enough to join its siblings in the brooder. And then I lost a lavender brooder keet.
The only bright spot for this year is that I’m getting some of the keet colors I’d hoped for. I think I have a chocolate in the brooder, and a buyer sent me this pic of a slate keet she hatched from my eggs! Also sent me this lavender something pic. I can’t tell from the pic if it’s a lavender or something more exotic. I think I’m also getting some pintos, but they are not re ally well marked and are more like in between pied and pinto.
