1st time Guinea mum (almost)

[JLeigh]

Oh, they can take several hours to zip the shell. Once the shell is zipped, they usually come on out in half an hour or so. At least that's been my experience. Some of my eggs pipped, but never zipped. Resist the urge to interfere with hatching, except to get the humidity up.

Listen for chirps and peeps, look for the egg to rock a little, and movement around the pipped area if you can see in.

If you have a hole in the lid of your incubator, you can run a straw through it to add water with a funnel on the end. I actually made one for my last hatch so that I could add water if necessary without opening the hatcher lid. It may not be too late for you to do that. I put my sponge underneath the hole so I could wet the sponge.

By the way, Peeps told me everything above. My last hatch was very successful because I followed her advice. I'm NOT the expert. I'm sure she'll be on here shortly to give you the best advice.

 

[Kymw90]

It's gone up to 40 and climbing. It's only a little £50 bator nothing fancy and still air hence the difficulty of getting the humidity up.

 

[Kymw90]

It's gone up to 40 and climbing. It's only a little £50 bator nothing fancy and still air hence the difficulty of getting the humidity up.

 

[JLeigh]

Hopefully it will come up fast.

 

[Kymw90]

Now 46% and second seems to be rolling about. It's so hard to not interfere because I only have 4 so I'm wanting to help any way I can. Egg one is chirping away and rolling about but no more zippiness... Thanks for all the support guys

 

[Kymw90]

47%!!

 

[Kymw90]

The V has started cracking downwards into a Y shape now!!! I'm soooo excited been talking to it and everything lol

 

[JLeigh]

Yay!!! You'll laugh, but when mine were pipping & zipping, my daughter and I would "peep, peep, peep" at them, sort of half peep/half whistle, and I swear it seemed to inspire them, so I believe you - keep doing it. When one hatches, I think having it peeping and running around the other eggs helps stimulate the others. I have NO scientific evidence to back that up. I had upwards of 15 just-hatched keets running around a hatcher with that many eggs. Eggs were rolling all over the place, too. It was like bumper cars in there, and it was all I could do to keep my hands out. Just wait until the first one pops out! It will seem "weak" for a bit, and breathe heavily, but it will gain strength and hop up and start running around and pecking at everything soon enough.
Where's PeepsCA when you need her????

She's the one who knows this stuff best. Oh, this is so exciting.

 

[Kymw90]

It's midnight in the UK and after lots of patience we have a keet. I admit I snipped a little shell as its beak wasn't in the right place but it helped and we have a chirpy, kicking its bros and sister eggs keet. Lets hope number two comes along soon and that number one stays strong

 

[JLeigh]

Congratulations! Let's hope this keet has a buddy soon. It's only about 8:00 in the Eastern U.S. I'll check later! Yahoo!