Finding a Guinea nest with a thermal camera

Ever since I got my first 3 Guineas I've hated looking for their nests! Very few guineas lay their eggs in nest boxes. Some guineas can be coaxed to lay in the coop through the use of partitions or barriers so they feel like they're hiding. Most guineas like to make their nests in the woods among high weeds, bushes or fallen branches. 

This isn't really a problem until they decide to set on those eggs to hatch them. A guinea just sitting in the woods day and night for 28 days is like a written invitation to predators. Of course when they decide to set, it's time to grab the guinea and collect the eggs so she doesn't go back. Which is easy if you know where the nest is. How do you find the hidden guinea nest?

I go in detail about finding Guinea nest here: 12 Tips for finding guinea nests. Sometimes though, despite my best efforts I just can't find the nest! This was pretty frustrating for awhile then hubby came up with the idea to get a thermal camera. Since the heat imprint of the guinea would show on the screen, I could easily locate her on the nest! Check it out. 

How often should you collect eggs?

How often do you collect your farm fresh eggs? In an ideal world we would all skip out happily and gather eggs into our aprons several times a day to use in our fresh baked breads and desserts. However, we all know that's not the real world.

We hope all the chickens are done laying by the time we feed them breakfast and a once a day egg collecting will suffice. Then suddenly you hear the egg song at 2pm and that idea goes down the drain. *sigh* So, how often should you collect eggs? How often is enough? How often is too much and just a waste of time? Why?

Well, it's been bugging me lately. I like to grab the eggs in the morning and again at night, and now I'm wondering if that's right or wrong. So I once again started researching and it turns out I am right! Well.....almost!

Fresh eggs need to be collected daily. Eggs should not be allowed to sit in the nest boxes for several days. Twice a day seems to be the a good number of collection times to shoot for. In average weather conditions that should suffice. 

However in the heat of summer or the very coldest of winter, eggs that are left all day could become unsafe to eat.

Turns out, how often you collect eggs from the chickens really depends on the weather.