Guinea hens make lousy mothers. I had posted the picture of the huge nest of eggs that we discovered. We found they were starting to hatch as of Sunday night. I was anxious to see how many more would be there Monday morning. I was heartbroken to discover that two had hatched and were dead. The mother had left the nest with one baby half out of its egg, two in the nest calling for her, another on the ground beside the nesting area calling her and the whole flock out wandering around the horse pasture. The one on the ground joined the flock, but the other two that had hatched were too weak to follow. I decided to collect up all the remaining eggs, plus the weak ones and put them in my incubator in the house. I candled what were left and found at least 20 had "something" inside, and another 15 that looked to be duds. I heated up the unit and stuck the possiblities and the three already hatched ones. The two from the nest quickly perked up, the one that had been stuck in the egg didn't look too good and to our amazement, within a couple hours, one more hatched.
Of course, my next problem was what to do with them. I decided this afternoon to see if one of my banties, who are still setting, would accept them and decide that her eggs had hatched. To our surprize, one quickly accepted them and fluffed her feathers and began clucking to them. As of this evening, the banty and her three adoptees are snuggled together in a box in the garage. I wonder if they will be any smarter since they are going to be raised by a chicken.
Oh, and the one lone baby that followed the flock is gone. I suspect the flock wandered into tall grass and it got lost.
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