I was out in one of the paddocks today, working on the fence, when Reba flushed one of the guinea hens off her nest.  She was nesting in some tall weeds.  I yelled at Reba, and she didn’t chase the hen, but the damage was already done.  When spooked off their nest like that, hens are most likely to abandon the nest.  Not taking a chance, I quickly gathered all the eggs and popped them into the incubator.

I have been incubating three guinea eggs for almost three weeks now, having collected them from the same hen before she decided to quit nesting in the barn.  In the photo, they are the three cleaner looking eggs in the center, under the thermometer.

The ones I brought in today are a bit dirty, as eggs naturally are.  I quickly marked the new eggs with double x’s and o’s and placed them inside the incubator.  The three original eggs have single x’s and o’s so I can tell them apart.  The letters help me turn the eggs the same amount and the same direction each time.

The hen had been incubating them for about a week, as well as I can guess.  That is about how long as it’s been since I’ve seen her out in the farm yard with the rooster.  The old guinea hen is still missing.  It’s been over four weeks now since I last saw her, so she must have been taken by a predator.  This year has not been a good year for getting any guinea keets.  The ones the hens managed to hatch didn’t make it, and they haven’t hatched any others since.  I’m hoping we can get a few to hatch in the incubabor, and I’ll raise them myself until they are old enough to be on their own.