EGGS!!...kind of.

We had our first two eggs the other day.  Unfortunately they were from the guineas and one was crushed.  They almost slipped past me without noticing as I was putting some food into the guinea ghetto coop.

Since all the chickens and guineas have been free ranging during the day, their poop has gotten bigger and bigger, almost comparable to something a Canadian goose might leave in a public park.  Not to delve into the subject in full detail, but they have been very dark colored, almost black with a nice white round cap on them.  It almost looks like a bunch of small ping pong balls in the bottom of the ghetto coop.

As I was putting some food into their coop the other evening, there it was.

You can understand now how I almost missed it.  It was tiny, not much bigger than the size of some of the poop.  There I go again, referring back to the excrement of the guineas.  As I looked further into the coop I saw another egg, but this one had been crushed and dripped down through the mesh.

It also was pretty small in size, and the shell looked pretty thin.  I'm guessing the guinea laid the egg while it was on the roost and then when it hopped off the roost in the morning, it landed on this egg and crushed it.  Either that or the guineas are just so big and lumbering that as it was walking around in the ghetto coop it just stepped on it, and since the shell was so thin, it just crushed.

I recovered the one good egg and thought about putting it into the chicken condo to see if one of the chickens would sit on it and hatch the egg.  I put it into one of the nesting boxes and the barred rock chicken that was in the condo at the time walked straight over to the egg and gave it a good peck with her beak!

Not wanting the sole surviving egg to get pecked to death and become dinner for the barred rock, although it would seem like sweet justice for all the harassing the guinea gang has given the chickens, I quickly grabbed the egg out of the chicken condo.

After taking some straw and making a nice nest of sorts in the guinea ghetto coop, I placed the egg gently on the nest in hopes that the guineas would figure it out and start to lay their future eggs in the guinea ghetto coop so they would be protected from the elements and any possible predators.

And there the egg has laid.  I check every evening and every morning now, but no more eggs.  After the attack, we weren't sure if we had two male guineas, or a male and female.  With that question now answered, it only leaves the question, "Will there be more?"