- Thread starter
- #3,091
elevan
Critter Addict ♥
Well we have more guinea keets. The guinea hen's eggs that were behind the house hatched today. I sent K out to feed the pig and she came running in to say that the guinea was in the field with babies. Indeed she was, with 5 of them.
I went to check her nest and was horrified by what I found - there were 3 keets laying there and a couple more hatching but the nest was completely OVERRUN WITH ANTS! They were going into and out of the shells of the hatching keets and the keets that had hatched were covered in ant eggs. I quickly snatched up the keets that were hatched and checked to see if they were alive. Only one was, so I got the ants off and pulled off all the eggs and handed it to K. Then I grabbed hatching eggs one by one and pulled pieces of shell off blowing ants away as they came out. The guinea eggs were FULL of ant eggs! So I pulled off all the ant eggs and handed 3 more keets to K.
Next up was grabbing the intact eggs and blowing off any ants and tucking them in B's shirt. We took eggs and keets to the coop. Time for some rearranging of chicken hens who were broody. I took eggs away from one hen and put the keets under her. Then I took eggs away from the girls who are sharing a box and gave them the intact guinea eggs (all 20 something of them...yeah she had a big nest). Then all the chicken eggs that I pulled went under another hen who was only sitting on 3.
All of that happened in the span of 15 minutes at 5:30 this evening.
I'm happy to report that the 4 keets that I saved are all doing great tonight.
The intact eggs are still under the girls and haven't hatched yet. I candled a few and it looks like they were a few days behind.
The guinea hen has her keets stashed somewhere outside. We can't find her new nest and when we tried to follow her she led us on a merry chase when she realized what we were doing.
So we had a completely exciting day today.
I went to check her nest and was horrified by what I found - there were 3 keets laying there and a couple more hatching but the nest was completely OVERRUN WITH ANTS! They were going into and out of the shells of the hatching keets and the keets that had hatched were covered in ant eggs. I quickly snatched up the keets that were hatched and checked to see if they were alive. Only one was, so I got the ants off and pulled off all the eggs and handed it to K. Then I grabbed hatching eggs one by one and pulled pieces of shell off blowing ants away as they came out. The guinea eggs were FULL of ant eggs! So I pulled off all the ant eggs and handed 3 more keets to K.
Next up was grabbing the intact eggs and blowing off any ants and tucking them in B's shirt. We took eggs and keets to the coop. Time for some rearranging of chicken hens who were broody. I took eggs away from one hen and put the keets under her. Then I took eggs away from the girls who are sharing a box and gave them the intact guinea eggs (all 20 something of them...yeah she had a big nest). Then all the chicken eggs that I pulled went under another hen who was only sitting on 3.
All of that happened in the span of 15 minutes at 5:30 this evening.
I'm happy to report that the 4 keets that I saved are all doing great tonight.
The intact eggs are still under the girls and haven't hatched yet. I candled a few and it looks like they were a few days behind.
The guinea hen has her keets stashed somewhere outside. We can't find her new nest and when we tried to follow her she led us on a merry chase when she realized what we were doing.
So we had a completely exciting day today.
