Nightmare hatching overload!

[BritinMO]

Absolute nightmare of a day yesterday, the 40 eggs under the 2 hens sharing the nest by the barn started to hatch yesterday and the 2 mothers LEFT the nest when they had 6 babies. Eggs were cracking so I ended up scooping them all up and putting them under a heat lamp where so far 8 have hatched sucessfully and there are still some moving and cracking this morning!
Managed to grab the 6 babies from the totally useless and VERY angry mothers who were fended off by my husband and a snow shovel, very dangerous trying to seperate moms and babies, lol!
THEN..................my suspicions that there was a female sat on a nest over the road in the woods all came true.......a mother wandered onto the lane with 19 babies all struggling along behind her! Hubby had left, so I was on my own to deal with that lot, managed to get the female home with the aid of a large tree branch and popped each baby into a bucket as they followed her.

So I now have over 30 babies (and maybe a few more eggs will hatch, but not confident of that) all installed in their nursery with a heat lamp in the tack room - soooooooooo cute! I cannot keep them all so have already put an advert on craigslist.

Oh yes - and I do have another nest on the go with 2 mothers sharing that one - should hatch in around 3 weeks, lol - HELP!!!!

 

[BritinMO]

Oh and some photos here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151048144875159.488185.753170158&type=1

 

[JLeigh]

Absolute nightmare of a day yesterday, the 40 eggs under the 2 hens sharing the nest by the barn started to hatch yesterday and the 2 mothers LEFT the nest when they had 6 babies. Eggs were cracking so I ended up scooping them all up and putting them under a heat lamp where so far 8 have hatched sucessfully and there are still some moving and cracking this morning!
Managed to grab the 6 babies from the totally useless and VERY angry mothers who were fended off by my husband and a snow shovel, very dangerous trying to seperate moms and babies, lol!
THEN..................my suspicions that there was a female sat on a nest over the road in the woods all came true.......a mother wandered onto the lane with 19 babies all struggling along behind her! Hubby had left, so I was on my own to deal with that lot, managed to get the female home with the aid of a large tree branch and popped each baby into a bucket as they followed her.

So I now have over 30 babies (and maybe a few more eggs will hatch, but not confident of that) all installed in their nursery with a heat lamp in the tack room - soooooooooo cute! I cannot keep them all so have already put an advert on craigslist.

Oh yes - and I do have another nest on the go with 2 mothers sharing that one - should hatch in around 3 weeks, lol - HELP!!!!

LOL - I'm sorry. It's hard to feel your pain because I think you're lucky. I have 16 eggs in the bator, and will be ecstatic if 10 hatch!!!! Even though I've never been in your situation, I know it's stressful to collect all the keets/eggs from a crazed mother hen, and it's a great image of you scooping up 19 keets into a bucket.

I wonder why they're such crummy mothers when they get so hysterical over their keets?

 

[BritinMO]

I have no idea why the mothers get so aggressive when they are so hopeless at raising their young, lol!
The mother of the 19 who were in the woods opposite is sulking and sitting in the lane in protest, I just heard a car honking and looked over and the driver got out to move her, lol!!!! She did such a great job to make it home with her babies, I do feel sorry for her!

The 2 other mothers who shared the big nest are stalking around the barn with their gang of mates, they can kind of hear the babies chirping in the tack room but can't figure out where they are, thank goodness!

 

[PeepsCA]

LOL Brit, I can just picture you rounding up keets and fighting off Momma with a branch

Sounds like you're having a great season, Congrats!
(I wasn't able to view the pic, the link won't work for me

).

 

[BritinMO]

Peeps!!! You would have been proud of me, lol! I'm pretty sure all the 'rescued' eggs that are going to hatch have hatched, one more hatched overnight and another one this afternoon, but none of the others are cracking...........I'll see what happens overnight I guess, but I suppose I will have to give up on them at some point??? I don't have an incubator

I've had 2 people contact me about buying some babies, one person wanted to know if they would get on with pugs and cats...............and the other lady wants older guineas so they can eat bugs immediately, I did point out that they would have to be cooped up for 6 weeks to stop them disappearing over the horizon, and said she might as well start with babies as they will be easier to 'train' and they will be ready to free range and eat bugs in 6 weeks...........she hasn't had guineas before - so I told her to visit this forum for all the info!