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)
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:
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.
I'm descended from farmers, but working in an office.
It was common until my mother went to college for everyone to have their own layers and let the kids tend the layers (and sell the eggs) and use the profits for spending money. Sort of got them used to working and keeping a schedule.
35 years later, I started working in the white collar world and one of the guys I worked with had a couple of chickens and a bunch of guineas. I never really got out of him what he did with the guineas....are they layers, for eating, or just pets?
It sounded like he thought they were more fun than the chickens.
>>>I never really got out of him what he did with the guineas....are they layers, for eating, or just pets?
Good question! They certainly are entertaining. I have eight (full grown) at the moment and plan to add maybe eight more to the flock and sell the rest.
People keep guineas for several reason. One always of interest is there constant hunt for bugs - the are 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!
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.
Another reason is they are noisy and let you know when something unusual is around. Some people call them watchdogs.
For those who may not know, this is what the guineas look like when about half grown:
The eggs are small but very good to eat although tough to crack open. The problem with the eggs is unless you keep them in cages they lay them in well hidden nests in the brush. Even watching closely, I usually don't find a nest until it has a bunch of eggs, maybe 20 or 30 which we pick up and incubate, OR, find where a raccoon or somesuch has found the nest first.
One funny story: I have been turning wooden eggs from fancy woods but turned some from plane maple that we use for decoys to try to entice the birds to lay in spots we pick. I had one wooden egg in a nest with a few guinea eggs and a the next time I checked it they were all gone. No broken shells as a possum or skunk or such would leave but just plain missing. After a search I found the egg on the gravel driveway in the woods. The big crows rob the nest one egg at a time and drop it to crack upon to eat the insides. That wooden egg had been dropped six times!! I can imagine that crow now, "Hey Bubba, come looka this, toughest egg I ever saw!"
We also have layer chickens and can sell all the eggs we get. They are colorful.
When the the chickens get older they quit laying so I invite families with kids to visit and learn first hand where their food comes from. (Lots of kids have no idea... "I thought chicken came from McDonalds", "Which part of the chicken is the nugget?") They have feather pulling contests, watch how they are cleaned and washed, and go home with chicken for the freezer. I've done this several times and it's always a huge hit, more interest than I ever imagined.
(Lots of kids have no idea... "I thought chicken came from McDonalds", "Which part of the chicken is the nugget?") They have feather pulling contests, watch how they are cleaned and washed, and go home with chicken for the freezer. I've done this several times and it's always a huge hit, more interest than I ever imagined.
Do you have the kids chase them down out in the yard? When I was little, my grandmother would send us out to catch one or two, and the chase would be on. I got better and quicker with practice. Of course when told to go catch a guinea, we always came up empty.
I had the same thing happen with a decoy egg made of marble! That crow must have thought it hit the jackpot with such a heavy egg, only to find it un-crackable
My grandmother raised guineas and one of the first things I learned about them when I was a kid was not to chase a guinea hen and her chicks. That mother will go right for your face! I vaguely remember eating guinea and guinea eggs but that was over 70 years ago.
I also remember helping pluck chickens and although that was over 70 years ago I am sure I would instantly recognize the smell of a scalded chicken today.
>>>Do you have the kids chase them down out in the yard? When I was little, my grandmother would send us out to catch one or two, and the chase would be on. I got better and quicker with practice. Of course when told to go catch a guinea, we always came up empty.
I keep the chickens in a pen with the roost and egg nesting boxes inside (open to the "vestibule" so I can step out of the rain and still gather eggs without actually going inside the coop.) That coop is pretty small and I have a weighted exit door on a pulley outside so catching them is easy - close the exit then go in at night and pick them off the roost! Before I do anything with a generation of the older hens I put them in individual cages to see which are still laying. I tell them plainly - lay an egg or we're gonna go visit Colonial Sanders! I do have
When kids come some some boys always ask if they can catch a guinea. I say sure, if you are fast enough. Ha! Good way to exhaust an overactive kid.
I was the plant manager for a large manufacturing plant in western Arkansas for several years before I decided to go to law school. One day my personnel manager called me into her office. When I arrived she announced that we HAD to give this poor child a job. The poor child was a young woman that must have weighed 80 pounds, soaking wet. She looked like she'd been in a fight with a bobcat; she had scratches and bruises over every visible part of her body. I asked what on earth had happened to her. "It's my job," she said. "I just can't do it anymore." "What's your job?" I asked. "I'm the catcher," she said. The world's largest chicken processing plant was a few miles south of us in Grannis, Arkansas. Eighteen wheelers brought live chickens in crates to the plant by their thousands every day. Turns out it was the young girl's job chase down and catch the ones that escaped while they were being unloaded. She was a pitiful sight. I hired her on the spot and she was a wonderful employee.
My mother used to make guinea salad (chicken salad with guinea instead). I liked it better than chicken salad as it had more dark meat and more flavor.
I remember them from childhood. The neighbor at the top of the ridge "kept" guinea fowl but they were about as free-range as could be, bordering on feral. They always wandered through the woods and were frequent visitors in our back yard.
>>>The neighbor at the top of the ridge "kept" guinea fowl but they were about as free-range as could be, bordering on feral. They always wandered through the woods and were frequent visitors in our back yard.
Ours range all over our property, the woods, and the neighbor's yards. They all said they didn't mind at all once they learned they eat ticks. I tell them if the birds start to annoy them just let me know if they really DO taste like chicken.
When I came back from college my parents had a "flock" of about a dozen guineas that were allowed to roam every day. Knowing there would be some fresh scratch chicken feed in the outbuilding they were quite happy to come inside every night. What I enjoyed most was that they would roam as a group all day long. Dad was asked to keep them inside when they started roaming down the busy through street. I suspect that was when they were invited in to dinner. Beautiful birds.
Back in the 1940's /50's, my Aunt had free range chickens on her small farm. She always had Guinea's that "guarded" the hen house. In the spring her hens were allowed to set and hatch their broods and most of their food was from the landscape, except for some ground corn.
There were always plenty of chickens and chicken was always on the menu every Sunday. She raised 2 of her grandchildren, one of them (my cousin) was my age. My father passed when I was ten so my mother and I visited just about ever Sunday.
One of my Cousin and I duties were to catch the Sunday dinner chicken. We found a method that worked well - We would set on the front porch (a concrete slab at the front of a log cabin) and spit on the ground. Chickens would always come over and peck at the spit. We had to be fast but always caught one within a short time!
She also had the Guinea's which always flew to the top of the hen house at dusk to sleep. Of course cousin and I had to catch one once in a while. When it was fairly dark this worked but was like turning on a fire siren. Shortly after we caught one the cabin door would open and my aunt would yell "You boys let that Guinea loose and quit bothering it"!
Back in the early seventies, my X-father in law and I raised 3 batches of 150,000 chickens together. One of his favorite sayings was " There is only one thing dumber than a chicken, and thats the guy that raises them". He had other houses of his own too.
I would laugh and agree, but going out and watching the chicken catchers work, catching, crating and loading the trucks had to be a few rungs lower on the ladder than the farmer. And I hate to think about how far on down working in those processing plants had to be.
OK, I'm going to try to pull this back onto the subject of woodworking. If any of you have commercial chicken houses or neighbors / friends who are. The ammonia in chicken litter is so strong that this would be an easy way to fume a large Oak piece, if it went in between batches.
From what I see, both guineas and turkeys are dumber than chickens.
A guinea can fly from the ground 50' straight up into a tree. I watched one fly 350' from up the hill near the house, over the roof of the shop, and land in the fenced-in front field. But then they will run up and down the 4' fence for an hour trying to figure out how to get to the other side!
Jerry, I guess I can't be a gentleman farmer since my wife and I are both retired, living on SS. Well, perhaps there's a pension or two in there somewhere, I don't know; she's the accountant and estate manager as well as investment counselor, purchasing agent, gourmet chief, travel agent, etc. All I do is play with the animals, the beehives, the sawmill, and the tools in the shop. And come when called for supper.
Re: That reminds me of my "Chicken Farming" years.
Barry Irby
I grew up on a farm that has been in the family for generations. Once and a while I would go visit my Uncle and Aunt in Louisiana. By this time my uncle was long away from the farm and lived in town. There was nothing about their house or circumstances that indicated anything about farming, except there was a nice plack on the wall he had been given for the "Chicken of Tomorrow". Somehow that struck me as a terribly comic award, but he was very proud of it. Years earlier he had raised chickens and his breeding program was quite successful. I bet the Colonel doesn't have an award that nice.
I am a Baptist preacher. Not promoting or recommending anything here, but I wanted to share what I did with your story of the crows dropping the wooden eggs. I used the story to illustrate why we keep doing things over and over if there is no possibility of accomplishing anything. Surely, we are smarter than a crow! Or are we? My text was First Corinthians 15:29-34.
I'd guess that since Asian Jungle Fowl eventually became our domestic chicken that Guinea Fowl probably aren't far off although I've been told that so many things (alligator, turtle, rattlesnake among others) taste like chicken that I'd have to try it out myself to find out.
