Had to tell you about my latest guinea story. My daughter thought she was helping and collected eggs from their nest about five days ago while a girl was on it. Last day they used that nest, of course. The next two days we had big booming thunder storms and lots of rain, so I only glanced around for the new nest, but didn't search. Two days ago I started really looking, and based on their behavior they had me convinced they must be laying on the far reaches of the property. We only have five acres, but it makes a long point so at the further end, they would be quite a hike and what's worse, the likely spot was dead center in a huge overgrown bramble patch next to a boggy area. I wasn't thrilled, and despite some looking--and scratches--didn't find the missing eggs. Two days of this, right? Well, yesterday, I was working in the pasture where my garden is, next to the coop and quite close to the house. Low and behold, there's a pile of guinea eggs! It was right in the center of a triangle of traffic, next to where I'm always working in the garden and walking to the compost and coop! It was only sheltered by some overgrown weeds, in a hallow in the ground. I'm tempted to say it was their worst nesting spot by far, 'cept it had me fooled! Turned out all the girls but one were using it, and all their eggs from the last five days were in it. I'll be putting them under a hen, cause they were rained on (poured on, rather) and my incubators are full, but I'm still glad I found them.
Oh, and peeps, I have seen studies done by our veterinary school that show turning after day 7 in chicken eggs makes virtually no difference to the hatchability of the egg--actually becomes decreasingly significant after day 4. Translating that into guinea terms, I have been stacking my guinea eggs that are at least 14 days into incubation (playing it safe) on the other eggs and not turning them. So far have seen no reduction in viability or hatch rates. Something to think about!
