Pooultry Question

[wills]

We have been incubating Guinea eggs. They started pipping day before yesterday and hatching yesterday evening and today. They should not have started until tomorrow. We only hatched about half the eggs.

We have had the same problem with duck eggs. We have hatched chickens before, and never had a problem.

Anyone know whether the early hatch and low hatch rate are related and what we might be doing wrong?

[Four Fingers of Death]

We have been incubating Guinea eggs. They started pipping day before yesterday and hatching yesterday evening and today. They should not have started until tomorrow. We only hatched about half the eggs.

We have had the same problem with duck eggs. We have hatched chickens before, and never had a problem.

Anyone know whether the early hatch and low hatch rate are related and what we might be doing wrong?

I generally get the bird to hatch them for me, I'm way too heavy, maybe that's your problem. Mick.

[Bigjohn]

Mick; I don't think that was exactly what he meant but your reply certainly raised a chuckle or two!

John.

[Slowpoke]

We have been incubating Guinea eggs. They started pipping day before yesterday and hatching yesterday evening and today. They should not have started until tomorrow. We only hatched about half the eggs.

We have had the same problem with duck eggs. We have hatched chickens before, and never had a problem.

Anyone know whether the early hatch and low hatch rate are related and what we might be doing wrong?


A few random thoughts

Its all about TEMP and Humidity. Not just inside the incubator, but also the where the incubator is located. The smaller table top units are much more sensitive in this regard.

I had better luck with units that had an electronic thermostat.

Early hatch can be traced back to a not so accurate thermostat that's keeping the temp closer to a 100* than 99.5 * for the term , (I am working from memory here its a been 7 years since I used incubators)

Also I have never tried to Hatch guinea's in an incubator but I have kept them for years and know that there eggs have a shell that is at least four times as hard as a chicken egg so would guess that humidity control is more critical than with a chicken egg, more so the last week.

I started out with two of the Hovabator's, auto egg turning with forced air, I used one for incubating and the other for hatching and averaged about 50% hatch rate.

Then I went to a Sportsman cabinet model, 350 egg capacity, electronic thermostat and humidity control, auto turn, forced air and my % went up to 90+, all were set up in the same room.

Another big item is the eggs themselves, I know from experience that the eggs I gathered and set always had a higher hatch percentage, than eggs that were given to me to set.

A couple of good broody hens go along ways to having peace of mind to someone wanting to hatch special eggs, and they are kind of like gold in that they are where you find them.

Lots of hens will set on eggs for 21 to 30 days. But a good one will raise all she hatches or die trying.

good luck

[waksupi]

I'm still pondering Mick, sitting on those eggs. From the looks of his photo, he is a big boy, and would have to sit pretty light! [smilie=1:

I will say, I much prefer guinea fowl for eating, over chicken. If you don't mind the noisy critters growing to eating size! Best watchdogs in the world, next to geese. If some of you guys haven't been around these critters much, they make noise at any strange disturbance at night. They used to make it pretty tough to steal watermelons on some farms, when we were kids. If you could beat the guineas and geese, and the load of rock salt from the farmer, you were some sneaky sumbitch! :Fire:

[Blackwater]

I had to laugh at the stealin' watermelons thing, Waksupi. The first time I ever got shot at was .... guess where? There was a very large and wicked briar patch between us good ol' boys and the car. We came back through it a LOT faster than we did goin' in! WAY faster!

Uh .... the statute of limitations HAS run out on that one, hasn't it? It's been 39 yrs. ago now, I think.

[StarMetal]

Waksupi,

That reminds me of a goose. Damn meanest bird I've ever seen. All of them chase you and bite.

Joe

[waksupi]

Joe, those geese can get old, and tough. One neighbor, Winter West, was a scary old hermit, that lived a couple miles away. He had dozens of geese. One morning on the way to school, my older brother was driving the '58 ford. He topped the hill on the gravel road, doing right on 90 mph. There were geese standing everywhere in the road. We rolled maybe a dozen of them. he got the car braked down, and we looked back. Every darn one of them got up, and walked away, honking madly!

[wills]

About two thirds of them hatched, and now incubating another 15 eggs. I’m using a Styrofoam incubator, don’t have a good settin’ hen.

[HTRN]

My cousins, who grew up in Puerto Rico, told me once that guard dogs were fairly rare down there - geese on the hand, were used everywhere.


HTRN

[Slowpoke]

Joe
Yea my wife can't get within 20 yards of geese or she will get bit and flogged and somehow it will be my fault. The wing does more damage than the bill. Needless to say we don't have Geese anymore.

Wills
Keep on a hatching those eggs and you will most likely end up with a few setting hens.

I have set Guinea eggs under chickens and vise versa with no problems, but I prefer to use the chicken for the incubator and brooder, Guinea hens have a bad habit of not looking back and if the chicks run into a problem or a obstacle to bad, Mom just keeps going, the chicks that survive will sure enough be hardy though, maybe its natures way of keeping the Guinea fowl hardy and tough.

The best food for those new chicks is boiled eggs, don't peel them just mash them up shells and all real fine with a fork or a pastry blender and mix a little with the starter mash to start and add more as they grow, its natures vitamin pill for fowl, and the chicks really take to it. In fact it is really easy to spoil them and make pets( pests) out them with the boiled eggs. Ten months out of the year we have more eggs that we can use, me or the wife just boils up all the extras once a week and feed them back to the fowl.

It comes in handy to call the fowl in from the fields if we have to go someplace and won't be back until after dark. We feed the eggs out of large metal mixing bowl, I can walk out on the front porch and bang a spoon on the bowl and the chickens will come on the run and the guinea's on the wing and by the time I get to the coop they will all be there, give them there eggs and close the door, no worries.

good luck