Yesterday morning all three guinea eggs (of the first batch of eggs) pipped.  So I kept checking all day, watching one of the eggs progress, but the other two didn’t.  I could hear the keets peeping and the eggs would rock, but they didn’t hatch out.  So by evening I helped all three eggs hatch.

I believe the humidity was not high enough in the incubator, and this can cause them to pip but not hatch out all the way.  When they first emerge from the shell they are wet.  You’re supposed to leave them in the incubator until they dry, but I put them in their brooder to dry instead.

They bobble around, or lay and sleep,  and dry off over time.  The last chick to hatch had some “goop” stuck on it’s posterior that was also stuck to the shell, so I was a bit concerned that one might have trouble.  This morning all three were up and peeping, eating and drinking.

There is one dark keet, and two light keets.  I don’t know the official colors, but the light ones will be the same color as the hen.  The dark one we’ll have to wait and see as it grows what color it will be as an adult.

Their food is a chick starter pellet that I ground up in a coffee grinder.  When they are bigger they can eat the whole pellets, but for now, it is much easier for them to eat the powder, and it ensures they eat more.  Their water is also a very shallow frosting can lid for now, enough for them to learn to drink, but not deep enough for them to drown in it.  In a few days I’ll switch them to a regular chick waterer.

After all the keet losses this year, I’ll be raising these myself.  They’ll stay in their brooder in the house for several weeks before moving to a larger brooder in the barn.  I hope at least one of them is a hen!

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.

Jackson is feeling better after his allergy/heaves attack the other day.  His hay wasn’t the culprit, so he’s been eating his regular hay and grain ration.  I believe he must have snacked on some of the bedding in his pen, which is actually old hay.  We’ll be cleaning his pen out using the bobcat this weekend to be sure he doesn’t do that again.  I tried cleaning some out with a fork but it was an exercise in futility.

In the meantime, I’m keeping him well supplied with good hay several times a day to keep him munching only on the good stuff.

If there’s time this weekend, he will also be getting a bath and have his mane and tail combed out well.  He’s for sale and I need to get some nice pics of him taken, and maybe a video also.  He LOVES to be groomed, I just need to find the time to spend doing it.

This is Beauty.  She came from a friends farm to be a second riding horse for me and friends when they visit.  I haven’t ridden her yet, too busy!  She is an Arabian and a nice friendly girl.  I suspect she might be deaf, but haven’t formally done any tests.  I’m not sure how that might effect her as a riding horse, but she gets along great with Misty out in the pasture.

This is Yoda, a pot bellied piglet.  She has some kind of skin condition that I have started treating and am hoping gets better soon, it really bothers her.  She needs a new name, poor thing.