guinea nesting ???

[Tad]

My guineas have just started to lay, I keep finding eggs in strange places, like the big bucket we use to catch corn out of the storage trailer. They free range all over the tree farm, is there any way anybody can think of to encourage them to nest in a particular site?
I plan on incubating the eggs later, i dont think these are fertile because I dont see them "mating"........anybody with any ideas?
thanks
Tad

 

[kinnip]

Mine haven't started laying yet, but from what I understand, your best bet is to let them continue to lay in the places you've already discovered.

 

[Guinea Goonie]

Guinea fowl use a "common" nest to lay thier eggs. This is why you see so many eggs in one nest. Do not move thier nest or they will find one even more crazy. Guinea fowl are horrid mothers. They usually do not sit on the eggs and if they do and they hatch the young they loose them ! Incubate the whole lot, as many as you can and candle them at day 5 or 6 to see if any thing starts up.

You can dispose of those that are unfertile and keep the rest. Guinea hens are pretty secretive about mating. You may not ever see the pair mate. Just be sure you actually do have a roo in the bunch. Males have a one syllable call and the females have a two syllable call.

I love my guineas, but most people just think they are loud and obnoxious. Mine have blended right into the chicken flock. Lately, they have actually had a few chickens become part of thier little "birdy group". When they alert and take to flight the poor chickens are left in the dust. You should see them run. I have never seen a chicken run that fast.

 

[Tad]

thanks for the heads up , I currently have 32 guineas running around the nursery/treefarm.
it seems to take all of them to make a single brain, or as the Wife calls it the "unimind"
I knew the horrible mom part before we started, thats why we got a bunch of them, as near as I can tell there are at least 6 or 7 males in the group.

 

[chicken_angler]

I have a male and a female. They started laying about a month ago and have recently quit for winter. The hen laid her eggs by their waterer. I have them with my chickens and there are plenty of nests. They just dont seem to want to lay anywhere else. Silly birds. They are pretty though.

 

[Tad]

we live in the southernmost tip of Texas so I guess they havent gotten cold enuff to stop yet, I am going to take a sixt five gallon nursery pot and fill it with bark mulch and place it next to the corn trailer and see if they are enticed to lay in it instead of on top of the corn.

 

[shelleyd2008]

One thing I have heard about guineas is that you can't get your 'human' smell around the nest. If you do they will move it. A friend of mine has a large spoon attached to a broomstick to get the eggs from her nests!!

 

[Guinea Goonie]

Some guinea's are like this. However, if you leave a third of the eggs in the nest the hens will usually go ahead and lay. You can mark the ones you leave with a PENCIL (markers will leave a non organic smell) and pick these up the next time aroung. Use a garden glove (not rubber) to take you eggs out.

As one person on this site said they find guinea fowl have a "unimind", that is about right. It seems to take all of them together to make one brain. I call it the "birdy group", they are amazing little creatures, I just love em.

 

[Tad]

where they are laying the eggs now is inside a large nursery pot, we use it to catch the corn that comes out of a gravity wagon, its always about half full we scoop out of it to feed chickens,guineas, and 2 evil goats. so they dont seem to mind that it gets disturbed every day, another place we found eggs was on top of the hydraulic oil drum, I need to figure a way to discourage them on this oone because he eggs get dirty with oil residue on contact.
they are so weird and they never shut up!! they also like to follow one of my workers around and harass him, they never bother anybody but him, they sorta mob around him and start the alert cry every time they see him, he shoos them away and then they follow at a distance ......tooooo weird these birds

 

[Guinea Goonie]

Quote:

And you want more of these loud, wierd and harassing little turds !?