Did you see our post on Instagram or Facebook?
We’re so excited about our new additions to the farm! You may have read our recent blog post where we told about our guinea hen eggs in the incubator. Our hope was to hatch our own birds, for ourselves and/or to sell. Since it was our first time doing this, we didn’t really know exactly what we were doing or what to expect! This past Monday evening we put the incubator into “hatching mode” and thought we’d be waiting about three days for any eggs to start hatching. Wasn’t I surprised when on Wednesday morning before leaving for work, the Dadz told me we had a guinea “keet” hatched in the incubator!
My plans for that day went totally awry (and I was already way behind schedule this week), as I had to check on the incubator all day long. It was 4:30 am when I was told that, and of course I couldn’t really get back to sleep, but did doze off a bit. When I got up around 6:30 am, we had two in there! It takes a while for them to hatch, but I was able to watch and get video of one of them emerging at one point (which I hope to share). One time I left, came back an hour later, and there was another one in there! It was a fun, though busy, day.
When Dad got home from work we had to get the brooder ready to move the keets into. At the end of it, we had 6 altogether. With 22 eggs in the incubator, we were hoping for more, but we think some of the eggs were just too old when we put them in there (sadly, none of Violet’s hatched).
But we’re excited with the 6 we have, and so far they are doing well. We’ll be keeping them and adding to our own flock. Our current 5 full grown birds are doing quite well at scaring that darn fox out of our yard, and we think with even more we’ll have more protection. Our hope is that some of this 6 are females so next year we can hatch more. By the way, our lone female, Henrietta, has started another nest and is laying again! This time the nest is close to the house, so we may let her do her thing and see what happens. We talked about incubating some more, but it’s a lot of work having different age flocks in different places, so I don’t think we’ll do that (subject to changing our minds of course).
I’ve been MIA from the blog this week, and visiting my blog friends. We’ve had so much going on, and I’m behind on everything. I even missed a post this week, and I don’t like doing that! But I’ve just had to prioritize. I hope by next week I’ll be more caught up and back on a normal schedule. I’ll have more photos of the little cuties to share, and I have a bunch of guinea hen stories to tell! There’s a lot of insight into why we love these birds so much. I’ve also been working on a sponsored post for HempMy Pet which has been a big help for Luke, and I can’t wait for you to learn more about that. Hang in there with us while I catch my breath!
I saw the post on Facebook, and I’m just so thrilled for you. I’ve seen chickens hatching at the incubators at places like the Big E, and it’s pretty cool.
Thanks! It was just so cool, and so fun to think that these little cuties are the offspring of our own birds!
Congratulations! Those little guys sure are cute. 🙂
Thank you!! It’s hard to believe these adorable little creatures grow up into the odd-looking birds they do! 🙂
they are just darling!! Congrats! I hadn’t seen because I barely go to facebook or Instagram anymore, I am there in spurts
Thank you, Caren! I know it’s so hard to get on social media and stuff, so I always try to share the important things here on the blog as well! Just a little later sometimes. 🙂
Beautiful job!! They are cute little buggars. I loved watching my ducks and pheasants hatch. It was cool to go out and open the steel incubator and see 50 little ducks and have them pop out like popcorn.
Oh my gosh, 50 at a time, now that must have been SO cool!! I hope we’ll have a bigger “batch” next time. 🙂
Though the max our incubator does is 22…you must have a big one!
Oh my gosh…how freaking adorable the keets are! Sending oodles of poodles welcome to the newcomers and wishing them well. Yes, I can imagine you have been quite busy with these little cutie-pies!
Thank you! Now things have settled down, they are pretty easy, but as they get bigger they’ll be more work. But they are so stinkin’ adorable!!
OMD OMC they are soo cute!!! Can’t wait to see your post wif HempMy Pet maybe it will be sumfin Mama can use to help my anxiety wif da loud booms (Can you believe these jackwagons around here are still shooting off fire works…rolls eyes all the way to back of head…Ugh) 🙂
xoxo,
Matt (& Matilda)
Oh, those darn booms are the worst. My sister had a really tough time with her neighbors setting them off, and one of her beagles. Luckily we didn’t have any too close…but the HempMy Pet did help Luke with the ones we heard. I hope the full review will be up by the end of this week or early next week. We are pleased with the product.
O-M-G!!! The little ones are soooooo darn cute!! How great that you got to watch them hatch! I’m sorry that none of Violet’s eggs hatched, but glad you’ll have more hens to gang up on the fox in a few months, or next year. And it’s great that Henrietta is starting another nest. No wonder you’ve been so busy.
I had no idea how much this farming thing was going to take over our lives!! But I’m so happy we decided to do it.
SQUEEE! They are so cute! Congratulations, I am so excited for y’all. I can’t wait to see the video. That must have been so cool to watch in person. ☺
Thank you! I’m having technical difficulties with the video…go figure….but I haven’t given up yet! It really was a great experience!
I need to check Instagram more often. Congratulations on the new additions.
I don’t get on there as much as I’d like to either. Thank you!!
Congratulation on the successful hatching. They’re cute little peeps.
Thank you!!
I totally get it, I’m thinking of taking some down time in September.
What fun to have new Guinnea additions!!
We all need some down time….I hope you get to take yours!
OMC! How exciting! And how fun to raise these little chicks from egg to adulthood. 🙂
I haven’t done anything like this since a million years ago, when I was a teenager and our cats had kittens. I’ve missed that, and it’s kind of sad that it’s not good to do that with cats anymore. We definitely need animal babies in our lives! (and I’d love to foster an expectant cat mother someday too)
This is so exciting, good luck with raising your very own guinea keets!! And in spite of being “behind” on things, Jan, you will catch up (as much as one ever can!) , so the little day break you took was good for you!
Oh yes, I’m so glad I took that day….a break was definitely needed!
We didn’t see the big news so we’re excited to see it now, yes, they are totally cute!!!
We saw this on Facebook. How cool to watch them hatch. They will truly be your birds now from day one. Congratulations on some success your first time trying!
Thank you! You are so right, they are going to be extra special since we hatched them ourselves!