Guinea talk.

[R2elk]

How can you tell if a Guinea is broody? My Guinea laid he first egg 2 days ago on the floor of the coop and I just left it there, she keeps moving it around. Today she laid another egg in a different spot. I picked up both eggs I will put them in my incubator. There is a nesting box in the house/coop I can tell she has been in it but she lays the eggs on the floor. If I leave the eggs alone long enough will she move them to one spot and then sit?

It is common for young guineas laying their first eggs to just drop them where ever they happen to be when the urge to lay hits them.

It is very unlikely that your hen will ever gather those eggs and move them together. What is likely is that at some point she will make a nest and start laying eggs in the nest and once she lays enough eggs she may go broody. Not all of my guinea hens have gone broody so it is possible that she might never go broody.

 

[Mraya]

It is common for young guineas laying their first eggs to just drop them where ever they happen to be when the urge to lay hits them.

It is very unlikely that your hen will ever gather those eggs and move them together. What is likely is that at some point she will make a nest and start laying eggs in the nest and once she lays enough eggs she may go broody. Not all of my guinea hens have gone broody so it is possible that she might never go broody.

So I guess I will just gather the eggs and Incubate them.

Thanks for your response

 

[JeffreyH]

I have two guineas on the same nest!
Is this good or bad?

 

[R2elk]

I have two guineas on the same nest!
Is this good or bad?

It is pretty common.

 

[GlennLee]

I have two guineas on the same nest!
Is this good or bad?

I have had several laying in the same nest. It's good that you know where the nest is. They can get pretty sneaky and will even abandon one for another if they think they have been found out. I usually mark the eggs just so I know which ones are older and I'll start to pull the older ones out as time goes on, usually about the first two weeks worth. I find mine will go broody on a nest if they've been laying for about a month. I let them keep about 20, even with two. If there are more, they'll have a hard time covering the eggs with their body.

So, is it good or bad? Neither - it just is... and a natural part of the guinea world.

 

[GlennLee]

My female started laying this past week. She is up to 6 eggs in the nest as of this morning. The overnight temps have dipped down into the low 40’s the past 2 days. Will these eggs be okay or is that too cold to expect them to still be good? The temps for the next week are going to be much warmer.
I ask because one of my Golden Comet hens just went broody and I want to try to place some guinea eggs under her.

Good to hear they are laying for you. I hope the dogs leave the eggs alone this time. Very exciting to have the possibility of keets. Mine have started laying as well and with 12 females, the eggs are all over. It's like an Easter Egg hunt every day! At this point I'm just gathering them to eat. I don't really need more guineas and I want to discourage the nesting with a fox on the hunt again. Do you have problems with snakes now or is that later in the summer? If I remember right, one got into a nest last year and you posted a pic of your wife holding up a dead one. It was huge! Keep safe there...

 

[GlennLee]

That's kind of what I've been doing. It's supposed to go down to 34° tonight so I took all except two eggs in. I wish I would have marked them. Dang it!! Anyway, I've been storing this week's eggs in an egg carton and a friend of mine, who raises chickens, is lending me his incubator. I was planning on putting them into the incubator tomorrow. I asked him if there was even a chance that they would hatch since they've not been kept warm and he told me to keep them in the house and as long as they are around 60-70°, they should be fine. Is that true? If not, I'll just wait till the guineas go broody.

Did you end up putting some in the incubator? Just wondering how things were going. I LOVE to hatch eggs. I'm on my 5th round in the incubator now. I was thinking that if I ever started an egg hatching business, I could call it "The Nut Hatch" - a bit of play on words with the nuthatch bird itself. Have fun and keep us posted of your hatchings.

 

[Dmontgomery]

Good to hear they are laying for you. I hope the dogs leave the eggs alone this time. Very exciting to have the possibility of keets. Mine have started laying as well and with 12 females, the eggs are all over. It's like an Easter Egg hunt every day! At this point I'm just gathering them to eat. I don't really need more guineas and I want to discourage the nesting with a fox on the hunt again. Do you have problems with snakes now or is that later in the summer? If I remember right, one got into a nest last year and you posted a pic of your wife holding up a dead one. It was huge! Keep safe there...

Yes, you are remembering right. No snakes yet this year, at least around the coop. My son ran over a big fat one in the driveway about 1/4 mile away last week though.
The past 2 years we didn’t notice any until the beginning of June. Besides the fact that keets are so darn cute, I am hoping for more guineas to eventually keep the snake population down.

 

[Nwygle93]

So I've been looking around on these threads but I'm still wondering. Can you house guineas and chickens in the same space? I see that you can't keep chickens and turkeys together, but is there a same worry with these two? Given, of course, that each have their own way to sleep and a large enough run. The only real reason we are considering guinea is for tick control (and maybe a bit of comic relief haha), but I wonder if the chickens or even turkeys would do just fine on that job.

 

[Dmontgomery]

So I've been looking around on these threads but I'm still wondering. Can you house guineas and chickens in the same space? I see that you can't keep chickens and turkeys together, but is there a same worry with these two? Given, of course, that each have their own way to sleep and a large enough run. The only real reason we are considering guinea is for tick control (and maybe a bit of comic relief haha), but I wonder if the chickens or even turkeys would do just fine on that job.

My chickens and guineas are housed in the same coop and share the same roosts. They free range together all day so all the birds have plenty of space to associate with whomever they choose.