air cells in guinea eggs

[spiritdance]

I have a pair of guineas that nested in my pasture and we found the eggs. Since I keep reading that guineas are notoriously poor mothers, we brought the eggs in and put them in the incubator. I just candled them and all of them have live keets in them. My problem is I can't tell what stage of development they are at, as I have never hatched guinea eggs before. The keets look pretty large to me, with the cleft that appears where the head tucks down being well defined and the keets filling well over half the eggs, perhaps even 3/4. However, the air cells seem small to me, not even 1/4 of the egg yet. The pasture where the hen laid is fairly damp, and she laid in a low spot, so my concern is that the humidity in the area was too high and the air cell development is retarded. So which would you go by in deciding when to quit turning the eggs? Does anyone know a way to encourage air cell development? BTW, I dry hatch until lockdown, but even without any added moisture my humidity usually runs around 40%.

 

[spiritdance]

Anyone? Is that an echo I hear in here?

 

[Nikkumz]

Its only supposed to be 1/4 of the egg at hatching..shouldnt be very big

 

[spiritdance]

I know I have much better hatch rates for my chicken eggs when the air cell is a bit over 1/4, approaching 1/3. I don't get near the number of drowned chicks since I went to dry hatching. Do keets internally pip higher up (I hope)? I'm just worried that perfectly healthy keets may drown because of our rainy conditions lately. And if you've hatched keets, can you tell me how full the egg typically is at lockdown? I'm just trying to gauge the developmental stage here, so any clue you can offer will be appreciated.

 

[Nikkumz]

I havent hatched any guineas actually, a friend of mine hatches alot and has for a while. He was here when i answered that last question but he left so im not sure, but ill keep bumping your post so you get your answer, this is kinda of an important question. Lol