Guinea's Laying, Now What?

[PeepsCA]

Update: sadly I lost three guineas to the cougars. However my remaining six have continued to lay in the hen house at night. I had a hen go broody so I stuck about a dozen under her and am hoping for the best. Not sure if this was the best choice but the guineas did not seem to care much about them. They just laid them wherever and did not seem to be to bothered to lay on them. I will let you know if we have a successful hatch with our chicken mother.

Sorry for your losses. Cougars, yikes.

Young Guinea Hens tend to lay eggs wherever for a while at first, eventually (if they don't choose to lay in the coop) they will pick a secluded spot out in the bushes, tall grass or other well hidden secretive spot and accumulate a big pile before they go broody on them. Sometimes several Hens will share a nesting/laying spot and the pile can be as big as 60 eggs, or more.

Good luck with your broody chicken Hen... they usually seem to be the better choice anyway, especially so early in the season.

 

[Christabelle]

My experience with guinea eggs is that they are pretty much indestructible. My husband says you can set 19 eggs and hatch 20 keets. I even forgot about a group of them in my smaller (brinessa type) incubator. It had no water and was still on auto turn with a bunch of keets peeping away (and sliding back and forth) the next morning. I felt pretty awful but the all hatched, and were ok!