We have six-month old guineas who are laying eggs and going broody - will the eggs even hatch?

[HoneyDreameMom]

Our guineas that we got in late March/early April have been laying eggs for a few weeks now. We thought it was just the occasional odd egg (we'd only seen 3 or 4) since everything we've read seems to indicate they usually don't lay regularly until the spring after they hatch. Well, today when one of girls wasn't with the flock, my son went looking for her and found her sitting on a clutch of 16 eggs. We do have male guineas, but none of us have seen them mounting the girls yet. It doesn't necessarily mean they haven't - we don't watch the guineas 24/7, but we are wondering if there's even a chance these eggs will hatch. Are our boys too young to do the job?

 

[cackler]

I would think that they could be fertilized. I have never seen my guineas breeding and we have had fertilized eggs. My thought would be if the females are mature enough to be broody that the males are mature enough but I don't know for sure. Of course they won't hatch unless the female is allowed to sit on them - the hard part is that if they are sitting in an unprotected area predators will be a problem.