First guinea keets

[John K Jordan]

The first guineas hatched this morning from the eggs I put in the incubator last month. These hatched 2 days early - they may have had a couple of days development before I stole the eggs from the hen. The normal incubation time is 28 days. (100-deg F, 55% humidity)

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I put about 70 guinea eggs in the incubator in two batches so with good luck things may get hopping soon. And peeping.

I hatched chicken eggs about 6 weeks ago as my initial test incubator run. The 38 chicks are growing like crazy. These pictures are at 5 weeks:

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When I go check on them some come up to socialize. I carry them around the farm and show them the llamas, peacocks, and such.

I also have 11 peafowl eggs due to hatch near the end of may.

JKJ

[Lee Schierer]

I can see it now John ...you walking around your property with a herd of Guinea fowl following you every where you go....:rolleyes:

[John K Jordan]

I can see it now John ...you walking around your property with a herd of Guinea fowl following you every where you go....:rolleyes:

That would be a first! Unlike chickens, I've never seen a guinea that didn't move away and quickly, unless I'm tossing meal worms to them. And they are FAST!

The only way I have been able to catch one was to lure it into a big cage with the mealworms or grab it off the roost at night. Fortunately (or unfortunately for me if I needed to catch one now) they have been roosting high in a dogwood tree after an incident with a big raccoon!

Now the turkey follows me everywhere, kind of like a puppy dog.

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JKJ

[John K Jordan]

The guineas continue to hatch. I think we are up to over two dozen or so with another dozen in the hatcher.

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JKJ

[Frederick Skelly]

That's neat John. Do you raise these as a hooby, or do they "do something good" for your farm?
Fred

[Jim Becker]

Fred, one job they are exceedingly good at (besides making too much noise...) is controlling the tick population.

[John K Jordan]

That's neat John. Do you raise these as a hooby, or do they "do something good" for your farm?
Fred

Fred,

People keep guineas for several reason. They are relentless in hunting for bugs, well known for eating ticks. Some people don't like ticks and are happy with that. (!)

A lady I know in Georgia said she has seen her guineas running around carrying baby copperhead snakes. Surprising, but some people don't like venomous snakes either. Crazy.

I saw guinea on the menus in some restaurants in Italy but not yet around here. We cleaned and cooked one a neighbor's dog had just killed. It was an older bird and not real tender but would be fine for stews and such.

Guineas are also noisy and let you know when something unusual is around. Some people call them watchdogs. I think they are entertaining. :)

For those who may not know, this is what the guineas look like, some of these are half grown:

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I like to keep at least 10 running around but we can sell all the guineas we can hatch. My motive behind setup up for incubating eggs was really to hatch peafowl. I've lost about 100 peafowl eggs in the last several years due to snakes and other things. Those I did raise sold without trying for $75 each and I probably could have gotten twice that.

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JKJ

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Been years since I hatched birds. Once had two ovens converted to incubators and had around 400 quail eggs in the incubators. I hatched out pheasants, turkeys, geese, and several varieties of quail. Got to be too much bother when I had other farm work to do. We had guineas for a couple years. Unfortunately they wanted to roost over the hay in the barn and fouled the hay.

[Jim Becker]

A new-found cousin of mine (thanks to DNA and Ancestry.com) has a small business incubating and hatching chickens, including some more unusual types I believe. I can see how that might be profitable for other fowl, too.

John, we toyed with Guinea Fowl a number of years ago to help with the tick situation...they LOVE Professor Dr. SWMBO and like to entertain her all too frequently with Lyme treatments...but the busy road (road-kill hazard) and close neighbors (noise) eventually precluded that.