my guineas

[african chickens]

i have 11 guinea hens, 9 males, and 2 female I can tell 2 of the males apart Rudolph's horn has split so it looks like he has reindeer antlers and paul who even though he's not a female has a short horn and messed up feathers I mainly signed up because I am very worried about the 19 eggs we discovered one of the females started staying out at night on the 3 days we watched her go into a patch of weeds so we followed her and what do you know shes laying down a little bit later I went to check and she was in the yard I decided to check the 'nest' and again what do you know there are eggs I went back to count and sadly on my way there were at least three empty shells later we got latex gloves and went to move the nest for some reason some of them were covered in what looked like yolk once we reached the bottom I noticed there were eggshells at the bottom they were now in the stall aka coop later when I checked on them before I went to bed nobody was sitting on it we decided to move it to the shelf in there stall aka coop i ended up checking on the again later still nothing I'm worried they wont hatch with is sad but reading the articles on here i feel much better.

 

[Sydney65]

Agreed, if they think the nest has been tampered with they abandon it, ditto w/moving them. If you have an incubator you can give it a try. Re yolk material on eggs, either some eggs were broken or someone dropped a shellless egg (yeah, really).
No. No one was asking abt your breeds, that was just someone's "signature", listing their interests after welcoming you to the group.
Try candling the eggs with a flash light to see what you have.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

i have 11 guinea hens, 9 males, and 2 female I can tell 2 of the males apart Rudolph's horn has split so it looks like he has reindeer antlers and paul who even though he's not a female has a short horn and messed up feathers I mainly signed up because I am very worried about the 19 eggs we discovered one of the females started staying out at night on the 3 days we watched her go into a patch of weeds so we followed her and what do you know shes laying down a little bit later I went to check and she was in the yard I decided to check the 'nest' and again what do you know there are eggs I went back to count and sadly on my way there were at least three empty shells later we got latex gloves and went to move the nest for some reason some of them were covered in what looked like yolk once we reached the bottom I noticed there were eggshells at the bottom they were now in the stall aka coop later when I checked on them before I went to bed nobody was sitting on it we decided to move it to the shelf in there stall aka coop i ended up checking on the again later still nothing I'm worried they wont hatch with is sad but reading the articles on here i feel much better.

Welcome to BYCs!!!

It’s somewhat difficult to get guinea fowl to successfully hatch their own eggs. If the hens sit on them outdoors, they are usually grabbed by a predator. Indoor nests can work, but it’s difficult to get them to accept an indoor nest. Moving nests seldom works as the hen abandons the nest. If you have an incubator, you can collect the eggs from the nests and hatch the keets yourself.

 

[Gallinarium]

I don't have much experience with guineas, but I do know that they lay in a community nest. If the eggs pile too high, some may break. Best of luck on them accepting the moved nest. I hope someone with more experience comes along. Welcome to BYC!

 

[BennieAnTheJets]

Yeah, as others have said, I think moving a Guinea nest does not work. The hen bonds to the nesting site not the eggs.

Having said that, I think it is still good that you moved it. To protect the hen. Hens sitting outside on a nest are usually eaten by a fox, racoon, owl, etc.

A predator may have already snacked on some eggs and left some egg slabber on the remaining ones?

You can always try with new eggs/a new nest that was started inside by the hens - to me the adult birds are more important.

One way to get them to chose an inside location is to provide good choices (secluded - even a few branches over a corner spot may work) and keep them inside a few days if that is not too hard on them.

If you have an incubator you can try to hatch the eggs yourself. My favorite incubator is: https://incubatorwarehouse.com/inde...its/hova-bator-genesis-1588-advanced-kit.html but there is much debate on favorites on this forum

The first eggs of the season are often infertile anyway, so don't stress too much.

If you take good care of the adults, in my experience, you will have more eggs than you wanted at some point.

 

[Isaac 0]

Welcome to BYC!

 

[My2butterflies]

Welcome!
Not an expert here, but my understanding is you’d need to move the hen with the eggs to have a better shot at getting her to continue to sit on a moved nest. Do you have a pen or enclosure you can put her and the eggs in?
I have yet to try having a hen hatch eggs. I let my girls keep a nest early this summer, but they gave up on the eggs a couple weeks before they hatched. I moved them to the incubator and 8 out of 10 fertile eggs hatched.
I moved 9 eggs from a couple nests into a new coop with nest boxes. I was hoping this might encourage them to you the boxes instead of the tall grass outside.
It hasn’t worked. They seem to totally ignore moved eggs. For me anyway.

 

[Sydney65]

Yeah...today is coop cleaning day while Rosie is in the kennel. She has a nest in the coop now so I candled them w/her out off the way. Lol...I may end up needing a 2nd coop.

 

[Madhouse Pullet]

Hello, welcome! I wish I had more experience. Theres a lot of information here, years worth. I hope you find what you're looking for.

 

[Pork Pie]

Hi and welcome to BYC. I hope the experts will be able to help.