Off-Grid in West Virginia

Sunday

Linda

A warm sun shone us today as we carefully removed twelve brown speckled eggs from their cozy nest. I was surprised that Mama Guinea didn’t throw a fit and start hollering for her mate to come and thwart the evil farmers stealing her babies. I slowly approached the nest  talking to her in soothing tones as I carefully stuck my hand beneath her to take an egg. She tolerated the removal of about three eggs then huffed off the nest making soft squeaking sounds that were almost inaudible. I’m not sure I want to know what she was saying. She stood just a arms length away and kept a weary eye on me as I gingerly picked up each precious egg and placed it into an egg carton.

I actually thought better about the egg carton after the fact, thinking that a towel lined basket would have been a better choice. That way the eggs would be in the same position they were in the nest. I don’t know maybe it doesn’t make a difference. I only selected a dozen, leaving her with ten eggs to tend to. When I moved away from the nest she immediately inspected her off spring then squatted down on them as if nothing had happened.

To keep the eggs warm I filled a hot water bottle, placed it on top of the carton and wrapped a towel around whole package. I had to wait a little while before heading over to Two Lynne’s Farm so I hope the tiny eggs fared ok and stayed warm enough. Again I am no expert at this kind of thing.

I don't know what I was thinking putting them in an egg carton.

When I arrived at Two Lynne’s Farm we took the eggs to their new surrogate mama. Her name is Turkey Lady and she is a beautiful bird. Turkey Lady desperately wants to hatch out a family and has been sitting on two eggs of her own. Unfortunately there is no male turkey on the farm so they are unfertilized. Lynne and Sandy have let her set on them to ease her broodiness.

Turkey Lady is a sweetie and she was very patient as I placed the twelve eggs beneath her warm feathered body. I stroked her back and talked softly to her to keep her calm. She just turned her pretty head and eyed me as she willingly excepted each little brown egg. I have no doubt in my mind that she will take good care of the little guineas.

Turkey Lady setting on the guinea eggs.

In payment for the services of Turkey Lady, I gave Lynne and Sandy a goody box containing my home canned tomatoes, pear sauce, pumpkin and squash conserve. We also agreed that they could keep half of however many chicks hatch.

We will see how well our little guinea mama will do in hatching whats left of her brood. Hopefully we will be able to catch them when they finally hatch. We wanted to at least let her try to hatch a few on her own. All we can do is hope for the best and let each bird have the satisfaction of being a mom.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 22nd, 2011 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Farming, Guineas, Homesteading, Off-Grid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.