Rural Gardening: surprise from 'lost' guinnea, 1 by mabecca

mabecca wrote:
yesterday i saw my guineas milling around in the woods so i went to see what the problem was. imagine my surprise to find all 6 of them aimlessly milling around like idiots with 12 teeny babies trying their best to keep up with the lavender (who i assumed had been taken by a hawk or coyote). my aunt helped me catch the babies (much harder than it sounds, for something so tiny they can really hustle!) as i have always heard that guineas are dreadful parents. from what i saw that is true, they had no regard for where the babies were, except the lavender momma and she wasn't exactly focused.

after securing the 12 in a pen i went back to find the nest and carried back 7 more eggs, one of which already had a thrashing leg poking out. thank goodness my cats were all napping.

so now i have 14, in the house in the pen and another one is pecking out of it's shell as i write this. the one with the leg sticking out was still like that after 8 hours so late last night i picked away tiny pieces of the shell, which had started drying badly, leaving the shell on for the keet to finish the job. i was afraid it's strength was giving out as the leg moved less each time i checked on them. i thought that one would be dead this morning but it is fine, cannot tell it from the others now.