NATIONAL CITY, CALIFORNIA 47 



From twenty to thirty and often more eggs are laid before the guinea 

 hen becomes broody, at which time she can be broken of her broodiness 

 easily by removing the eggs from her nest, when she will soon begin lay- 

 ing again. If not allowed to sit, guinea hens will continue to lay thruout 

 the summer, laying from forty to sixty and in some cases one hundred 

 eggs during the season. 



GATHERING THE EGGS 



The wild nature of the guinea hen asserts itself in her nesting habits. 

 Instinct demands that the nest be well hidden from all enemies, such as 

 crows, dogs, skunks, opossums, rats, foxes, coyotes, and other predatory 

 animals. If the hen becomes frightened by the intrusion of some enemy, or 

 if her eggs are removed from the nest, more than likely she will change her 

 nesting place to a safer location. For this reason she should not be dis- 

 turbed while she is on the nest, and the eggs should not be removed with- 

 out leaving a few nest eggs in their place. If a number of eggs are re- 

 moved at one time, half a dozen left in the nest usually are sufficient to 

 keep the hen from seeking a new nest. If the eggs are gathered every day, 

 two or three usually are enough to leave as nest eggs. It is unnecessary to 

 remove the eggs with a spoon or to scrape them out with a stick, as is 

 sometimes done to prevent the hand from coming in contact with the nest 

 and leaving a scent. After the eggs are gathered they should be handled 

 with as little jarring as possible and should be set while fresh, never hold- 

 ing them more than two weeks if it can be avoided. 



INCUBATION 



Ordinary hens are used commonly to incubate guinea eggs, but guinea 

 hens, turkey hens, and incubators also can be employed successfully. The 

 usual sitting for a guinea hen is about fourteen eggs, for a hen of one of 

 the general-purpose breeds, such as a Plymouth Rock, eighteen eggs, and 

 for a turkey hen, about twenty-four eggs. The incubation period for 

 guinea eggs is twenty-eight days, altho frequently they start hatching on 

 the twenty-sixth day and are all hatched by the end of the twenty-seventh. 



If the nest in which the guinea hen becomes broody is safe from any 

 disturbance, she may be trusted with a sitting of eggs and more than likely 

 will hatch out every egg that is fertile, provided all hatch at about the same 

 time. As soon as the guinea chicks begin to leave the nest the hen will 

 leave with them, and any eggs that are late in hatching are ruined unless 

 they are placed in an incubator or under a broody hen before they become 

 chilled. Guinea hens usually are too wild to be set anywhere except in the 

 nest where they have become broody, and often such a nest is unsafe. 

 Because of these disadvantages and the fact that guinea hens do not make 

 the most satisfactory mothers for guinea chicks, ordinary hens are most 

 often used to do both the incubating and the brooding, at least until late 

 in the summer, when the guinea hens often are allowed to sit and raise a 

 brood without much attention being given them. Broody turkey hens, 

 when not needed to incubate turkey eggs, often receive a sitting of guinea" 

 eggs, and they hatch them quite as well as ordinary hens and also are able 

 to cover more eggs. 



ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION AND BROODING 



Incubators are used as successfully in hatching guinea eggs as in 

 hatching hen eggs. They are operated in exactly the same way for either 

 kind, except that the thermometer is lowered sufficiently to make its relative 

 position above the guinea eggs similar to its former position above the 

 hen eggs. 



Little has been done in the way of brooding guinea chicks artificially. 

 They are naturally of a wild naturi- and require free- range to grow into 

 strong, vigorous birds. 



