I found my first guinea eggs in the house I ate some (wanted to try them, tastes like chicken LOL) and put 7 in the incubator to see if they are fertile, 5 were and this morning day 27, 2 are hatching! I wonder if they will be hybrids or guineas?? Stay away from the incubator Lora, stay away......
On a sadder note, my two lil papillon/chihuahua dogs (15&9 lbs) got a partridge this morning, I found them plucking it in the driveway so I ran out and it was still alive, but it had a been torn open (top of chest crop area the skin was seperated and it had no chance) so I had to put it down, it was quite plump so atleast they are doing well this winter. I hope they just found injured and didn't hunt it down.
Keets are hatching!!
My first keet!! What a great thing! I bought guinea eggs last year, hatched them raised them and now here I have a brand new keet!! Sorry the pic isn't better, I only wanted to take one quick pic!! Two more are coming thru soon!!
This message was edited Mar 8, 2008 12:38 PM
And the next to arrive was a what I think will be a Pearl guinea and we have one more on the way (that I can see). I will take more pics when everyone is dry, fluffy and ready to go into the brooder!
Here they are! Three totally different colored guinea keets!
are they hybrids
As far as I can tell they look exactly like the ones I hatched last year, same skin, feet head just different color variations. I am thinking they are pure guinea, my guineas rules the outdoors , they charge at and run off anyone going by them or what they want. I am posting them this afternoon on the guinea site and I am sure if they are hybrids someone will chime up. I will post another pic when I get back from my journey south, not looking forward to a 3 1/2 hour ride down, I do get two macaws, a blue and gold and a scarlet (don't have a scarlet!!). Today 11 out of 12 chicks I hatched are going home, one woman is taking 11 ($2each) and I am saving the silver and black one for a woman who bought a dozen hatching eggs, she saw the pic and has to have him (or her). So are two foster birds, a peach fronted conure, Skiddles and a cockatiel, no name (his "mother" never named him, sad I know) so its The Great Bird Exchange Day!! I'll post more pics in the PM. Have a good day!
Here they are well two one more to follow
And the first hatched, here's Uno!
They are absolutely adorable!!
i love Uno!
Can I please ask where you got the guinea eggs at? I would love to get some to try and hatch. Guess I could just get the keets. That would be easier I guess but not as much fun.
Makshi, you can get guinea eggs on eBay, or eggbid.
i recommend guineas from:
www.guineafarm.com
or
www.xtremegamebirds.com
good luck picking a color! my fav is coral blue. but i only have three colors right now LOL
after my eggbid experience, i just can't recommend it ;-(
Well I haven't hatched eggs in many a moon and am not sure how to get started. I will have to do some reading. How much room do you think you need for 3 or 4 of them?
Sorry, TF, I forgot about the eggbid experience you had. My mind isn't working right since I got sick two weeks ago. I just hope to be back to normal soon. Hate being this way.
Since I don't buy eggs to hatch, I have no way to tell about them. But, I am getting day-olds from Ideal in May.
As in Coop room? They need the same as a chicken. If you need to know about guineas read Gardening with Guineas or you can go to http://www.guineafowl.com/board/index.php they are mostly good people, some like to kill anything and I mean anything that gets one of their guineas even if it was their fault the guineas got out. Personally I believe if you free range or your flock gets out and an owl or raptor gets one it was fair game, dogs etc breaking into a pen/coop is a whole different story. Anyway, they can answer anything about guineas they know everything!
They are easily free ranged, they need to be in their cope atleast 6 weeks and be atleast 12 weeks old and they will return to the coop every night. I only had an occasional night that one didn't because they were scared of the new thing called SNOW but it was one at a time and only lost one to a barred owl during the day.
To hatch them just use a regular size incubator, they take 28 days a week longer than chickens. I bought my original ones off of Ebay. Someone on a local poultry forum told us about these sites too for buying eggs etc
http://www.chixbid.com/
http://www.poultrybid.com/index.php
http://www.ovabid.com/index.asp
you will want more guineas than that. see my thread aobut how we started with them. they are very flock-minded. you kno wthat they eat ticks and grasshoppers, and love to free range. but if you are keeping them in, i would say the same as penned up chickens, 3-4 sq ft per bird.
Janet Strombergs book is a good read. But those links sell chicks, don't know if they sell eggs...
tf
missed the other posts, sorry, got distaratced. anyhow, what SHE said LOL. and chixbid is same people as xtremegamebirds. i forgot about that site! cool.... i am SO addicted!
This message was edited Mar 15, 2008 2:57 PM
Well thank you all for the info. I guess the first place to start is to see if I can have them here. My DS said mom are you sure it isn't against any laws to have them.
Here's they are getting cuter by the day!
oh, i just LOVE keets!
They are so cute.
They are so adorable, LoraK! I would like to have some
guinea eggs to hatch, but DH is worried they will get on
and scratch the car. I definately like the bug control idea.
Hi
The last of the practice eggs hatched today! Its a beautiful royal purple or pied (last year I thought I had a royal purple and it was a pied)
It was the only one of 4 that were fertile. The other three are getting so big. I will take a pic tomorrow and post it of everyone!