We have babies!

[Oldhenhens]

I was so excited to find someone in Oklahoma who breeds fancy colored guinea fowl. So, 27 days ago, I set 27 of his eggs in the incubator. This was a week after a hen (Violet) conveniently went broody on a nest in my coop. The day I set the eggs, another hen, Welch, just happened to join Violet on the nest. Two weeks after that, Violet abandoned the nest (why? Chased off by more dominant Welch or just quit?) and only Welch remained. Welch is the bird that hatched and raised keets last year, so that was fine by me, though I’m sad for Violet who has tried very seriously this year to incubate a nest.

Also two weeks ago, I was afraid that Welch’s eggs would be close to hatching, so I’ve chased her off twice to take developed eggs and swap in the eggs I wanted her to hatch. Last weekend, Violet’s original eggs started to hatch in my incubator - I think I’m up to 18 keets in my brooder with four more eggs still cooking/hatching.

My excitement today though is that Welch has keets! I think at least 9 of the 19 fancy eggs that I gave her have now hatched. Her consort, Hamlet, has even come back to attend her. Hamlet was the most devoted cock I’ve had while his mate was incubating. He stayed by her for two weeks, then gave her up for another hen, which is par for the course for my guys. But he was staying with her this afternoon and his “new hen” now has herself a new beau. I’m hopeful I’ll finally have a dad taking an active role in keet rearing.

I snapped a quick pic of Welch and her babies in the nest box. Welch wasn’t too upset when I peeked, and she even let me help a wayward baby back into the box. She really hated the camera though! These eggs were from Pinto Royal Purple and Violet breeding pens. So far I’m seeing white, royal purple, pinto RP, and Violet/Pastel keets!!!

Congratulations! I’m so jealous! I set 8 guinea eggs in November and only had 4 hatch. Then unfortunately 2 died 24 hours later. The two are very healthy and growing fast.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Congratulations! I’m so jealous! I set 8 guinea eggs in November and only had 4 hatch. Then unfortunately 2 died 24 hours later. The two are very healthy and growing fast.

Oh I’m so sorry about the losses, but that’s great that you ended up with two! Any pics? It seems that several of us had terrible hatch rates last year. @Sydney65 had terrible luck with her shipped eggs, and my incubator hatch rate was awful, probably because my turner wasn’t working right. This hatch that I described in this thread was partially broody incubated and broody hatched. Let’s hope that we all get better hatches next spring!

 

[Oldhenhens]

Oh I’m so sorry about the losses, but that’s great that you ended up with two! Any pics? It seems that several of us had terrible hatch rates last year. @Sydney65 had terrible luck with her shipped eggs, and my incubator hatch rate was awful, probably because my turner wasn’t working right. This hatch that I described in this thread was partially broody incubated and broody hatched. Let’s hope that we all get better hatches next spring!

They are strong and healthy! I got the eggs from a friend. She thinks they are from her French. I think the two losses where due to the incubator I used. Cheap yellow one from Amazon. I didn’t really know much about hatching eggs. Now I know! The Brinsea is so much better!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

View attachment 2931727
They are strong and healthy! I got the eggs from a friend. She thinks they are from her French. I think the two losses where due to the incubator I used. Cheap yellow one from Amazon. I didn’t really know much about hatching eggs. Now I know! The Brinsea is so much better!

Cute! Thanks for the pic!!!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Babies are six months old so I thought I would make one final post with current pics. We did recently lose one of last year’s babies: royal purple cock Merlot failed to show up at the coop in mid-January. No feather pile, no nothing, so I don’t know if a hawk got him, he got hit by a car… ??? The rest are doing well though. I’m going to post a pic and description for each, including some younger pics for a few. If I was unsure of a bird’s color, I posted pics of each as a keet, juvenile, and adult on a forum administered by some of the people breeding these newer colors, so I’ll state colors as decided there. They are:

Lil Bit the pastel, definitely a hen!

Cocoa (formerly known as Cinnamon) the chocolate hen:

Next to Loudmouth the royal purple:

Next to foster mom Welch, the royal purple

Next to a Pearl grey hen:

Viola (hen) and Razorback (cock) the violets:

Surplice, a royal purple hen that I think just barely meets the requirement to be a pinto

Zinfindael the pied royal purple cock:

Loudmouth the RP hen:

And two whites, Monroe and Dot. I think that they are both cocks, but Dot hangs with the Bruiser trio as if Dot is one of the hens, so not sure what’s going on there!

 

[Sydney65]

Pictures of your guineas always mzke me so happy! Monroe has some big feet! Good thing you didn't go w/Marilyn. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one tripped up by goonie genders. We'll find out when the eggs drop-or don't. Lol.
It makes me curious as to Mia's reaction to keets this year, bc I agree, she's lookin' like a he. S"he" was raised by my boys, and stepped in right away as a nanny when Mama's hatched, so mb Mia will step in w/the keets.
Now - your set up - is that hardware cloth or netting bolted to base of run? Is it anchored to the ground or just laying on top? I assume that's to mitigate diggers, so is it working well? That's what I was thinking I should do w/new set up, so glad to have a reference to show Himself. I think I've said already that I've been stockpiling 1/4" hardware cloth for this project. Himself thought he would talk me into netting instead bc someone else is doing it. Not happening. So, any "if I had it to do again,"changes you'd make?
Ps- that picture of Loudmouth with wings up is priceless.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Pictures of your guineas always mzke me so happy! Monroe has some big feet! Good thing you didn't go w/Marilyn. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one tripped up by goonie genders. We'll find out when the eggs drop-or don't. Lol.
It makes View attachment 3023133me curious as to Mia's reaction to keets this year, bc I agree, she's lookin' like a he. S"he" was raised by my boys, and stepped in right away as a nanny when Mama's hatched, so mb Mia will step in w/the keets.
Now - your set up - is that hardware cloth or netting bolted to base of run? Is it anchored to the ground or just laying on top? I assume that's to mitigate diggers, so is it working well? That's what I was thinking I should do w/new set up, so glad to have a reference to show Himself. I think I've said already that I've been stockpiling 1/4" hardware cloth for this project. Himself thought he would talk me into netting instead bc someone else is doing it. Not happening. So, any "if I had it to do again,"changes you'd make?
Ps- that picture of Loudmouth with wings up is priceless.

Thanks Sydney! The young ones are mostly terrified of me but I adore my guineas anyway. They are endlessly entertaining. Zinfindael is standing at the human door of their new run. I’ll try to take some more pics and post on my new run tomorrow. The run isn’t finished, but it’s usable. We put in an apron of 24” wide 1/2” vinyl coated hardware cloth. It’s tacked on with a few washers and screws right now, but I want to put heavier gauge welded wire over the bottom half of the sides, then pressure treated boards screwed over what will be three layers of wire (1/2” hardware cloth of the run vertical sides, welded wire, and apron). The apron is staked down throughout to tack it to the ground. I used 1/2” hardware cloth with no vinyl coating for the aprons I have in three other coops. After four years, that hardware cloth apron is corroding and breaking, so I wanted to use the vinyl coated stuff this time to protect it from corrosion. It’s expensive but there was one brand on sale at Amazon. I probably should have bought a bunch of it to replace the other coop aprons but couldn’t really afford that right this minute!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0030MIHBE?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

 

[Sydney65]

Watch ebay and fb marketplace for odds n ends. It looks like I'm on the right track. We have these for the walls and will mount on treated wood base. They're 5'4 × 8'6, so can give them some height for flight mountedon side. There will be a door into garden and a door between garden and run. Will probably need to plant a post in garden to provide overhead support. I just don't trust that a raccoon won't climb the hardware cloth to the top and fall through a net,defeating the whole purpose - or chew through it.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Watch ebay and fb marketplace for odds n ends. It looks like I'm on the right track. We have these for the walls and will mount on treated wood base. They're 5'4 × 8'6, so can give them some height for flight mountedon side. There will be a door into garden and a door between garden and run. Will probably need to plant a post in garden to provide overhead support. I just don't trust that a raccoon won't climb the hardware cloth to the top and fall through a net,defeating the whole purpose - or chew through it.

Wow that’s interesting! Similar to 4x8’ frames made out of 2x4” boards? That’s how we framed our chicken run, attached to 4x4” PT posts in concrete every 8 feet. The new Guinea run also uses 4x4 posts in concrete every 4 feet, but instead of framing sections, we just run 2x4 boards horizontally between each post at top, bottom, and 4 feet up. Then we attached 1/2” hardware cloth around the bottom 4 feet, and another 3 ft piece of hardware cloth around the top 3 feet.

 

[Sydney65]

Wow that’s interesting! Similar to 4x8’ frames made out of 2x4” boards? That’s how we framed our chicken run, attached to 4x4” PT posts in concrete every 8 feet. The new Guinea run also uses 4x4 posts in concrete every 4 feet, but instead of framing sections, we just run 2x4 boards horizontally between each post at top, bottom, and 4 feet up. Then we attached 1/2” hardware cloth around the bottom 4 feet, and another 3 ft piece of hardware cloth around the top 3 feet.

These were from heavy farming equip shipping crates-the guy takes them apart and makes these, sells for $15.