Will the guinea really hatch the eggs?

[bubbalous]

Hi there!
So we have had our guineas for a little over a year now, and back in April, and a whopping 1 of our 5 started laying eggs. I guess the other 4 are boys although I swear I heard one of them make the girl call.
At first she laid her eggsin the horse trough, (their coop is a stall in our barn) but that wasn't ideal, because they all roost overnight on the bars above and poop right on the eggs. She also laid one or two in the middle of the stall floor, but when I picked them up and put them in the trough, she pretty much abandoned that site and started laying in the corner - good girl.
She religiously laid one egg per day in her tidy little corner protected by a log until she got to 27 cute little guinea eggs. Then she tentatively sat on them for spells at a time (for about a week). Now for the last 2 -3 weeks she has faithfully been sitting on her eggs and gets all protective and hissy if you put your hands near her while she is on.
Will these eggs actually hatch? I assume I should "rescue" the keets to a brooder box (we got that down having raised these guys from keets). Will she let me? How long should I wait? How much longer do you think it will be? Does the "incubation" period start when she starts sitting full-time? Are these eggs even going to hatch? Help?
Thanks guys!!

 

[R2elk]

Hi there!
So we have had our guineas for a little over a year now, and back in April, and a whopping 1 of our 5 started laying eggs. I guess the other 4 are boys although I swear I heard one of them make the girl call.
At first she laid her eggsin the horse trough, (their coop is a stall in our barn) but that wasn't ideal, because they all roost overnight on the bars above and poop right on the eggs. She also laid one or two in the middle of the stall floor, but when I picked them up and put them in the trough, she pretty much abandoned that site and started laying in the corner - good girl.
She religiously laid one egg per day in her tidy little corner protected by a log until she got to 27 cute little guinea eggs. Then she tentatively sat on them for spells at a time (for about a week). Now for the last 2 -3 weeks she has faithfully been sitting on her eggs and gets all protective and hissy if you put your hands near her while she is on.
Will these eggs actually hatch? I assume I should "rescue" the keets to a brooder box (we got that down having raised these guys from keets). Will she let me? How long should I wait? How much longer do you think it will be? Does the "incubation" period start when she starts sitting full-time? Are these eggs even going to hatch? Help?
Thanks guys!!

The eggs do have a chance of hatching if they are fetile. Guinea eggs typically take 26 to 28 days to hatch. From your description of her setting behavior (2 to 3 weeks) the eggs are due to hatch in 1 to 2 weeks.

When you try to take the newly hatched keets from her you need to be wearing a jacket and gloves fro protection because she is not going to take kindly to you taking away her babies..

 

[bubbalous]

I figure they have a pretty good chance of being fertile with 4:1 odds of boys to girls.

On the other hand, the girl was always the smartest of the bunch and didn't always pal around with the crazy ones.
Well only time will tell, I reckon. It would be a shame if all her dedication was for nothing.

We certainly don't need 27 more guineas, but a few would be nice to add back to the flock. We started with 11 before they got "re-sized" from free range/barn stall to their current prison sentence of just the barn stall and a run - (long story - many funny missed youtube videos, lots of exercise for everyone and a lot of zip-ties) But they've survived the last couple months and we got a nest, so I'll say it was worth the effort.

Thank you!!!

 

[Guineagang]

I think they will hatch. ABSOLUTELY! Theres a big chance they're fertile but when they do hatch, you NEED to take them away from their mother and put them in a brooder. I learnt the hard way. Guineas are terrible mothers and the keets survival rate will be really low. My first ever nest of guinea ended in misery. 22 out of the 31 eggs hatched and I only managed to save 8 keets. I thought the guinea hen would make a great mother but I was wrong, most of them got abandoned or lost and most of them drowned because they hatched in a period when we had a lot of thunder storms.

 

[jridgway1972]

Oh I am so glad I found your post. Did they hatch ok?

What did you do?

I have a guinea that is trying to hatch 10 eggs. I have checked on her 3 to 4 times a day for the last least 3 weeks. She stays on the nest which is under a tree 11 ft from the farm road/highway I live on. I have not seen her off the nest for three weeks and I take scratch to her in the evenings. It has to be almost time for hatching since she appeared today with the male and other female who were looking for scratch. It's been a rainy day. She is now back on the nest. It rained last night, today and will .continue for a couple of days. I'm worried because I have read that wet keets die, and I also think they might wander into the highway. We are getting ready to build a "keet fence" to prevent wandering until we can get to them, but need to wait since the area from tree to road is not really mine.

Did she let you rescue the keets?
Did you figure out when the incubation period started?
How long did you wait to rescue them if you did?

I don't have a brooder box but I have boxes and heat lamps so hope that will work. I was thinking I could put dry hay around her, but then worried that it might divert water TO the keets instead of giving them a dry spot.


Thanks advance for sharing your knowledge because I really don't want to wander into this alone.

 

[bubbalous]

So... sad to say... no eggs hatched! After about 30 days of straight sitting, being broody as heck, even pecking my toe for getting too close... she abandoned the unhatched eggs and started laying in the trough again. Only difference now is one of the others hangs out with her. Who knows. Maybe now she figured out she needs to hang with the boys for the babies...