Growing Up Guinea Fowl

[Moonbeam Guineas]

Up close amd personal ..meet the keets!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

The little stinkers (18) one last keet just hatched and still in the incubator. My hatch rate 20/24View attachment 3175078View attachment 3175080View attachment 3175081

Beautiful group and great hatch rate!!!

 

[Moonbeam Guineas]

Gave 6 of my keets to a lady @ work..she has a whole farm, cows and all. These are her 1st guineas. Good Luck little keets. ❤

 

[Sydney65]

Great fertility rate! Mine hatch on about two weeks. Good luck to both of us!

Heh, have you hatched???!!

 

[Sydney65]

Up close amd personal ..meet the keets!

BABIES!!!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Heh, have you hatched???!!

Yes and it was terrible! As bad as last years hatch, which I blamed on the failed turner. I got a new turner, which worked fine, and still a bad hatch. Trying to raise humidity to 45-50% instead of dry incubate as my next troubleshooting step.

 

[Sydney65]

Yes and it was terrible! As bad as last years hatch, which I blamed on the failed turner. I got a new turner, which worked fine, and still a bad hatch. Trying to raise humidity to 45-50% instead of dry incubate as my next troubleshooting step.

Aw, I'm sorry-and so glad I'm not doing it this year. Despite not incubating this yr, I still like reading different research.
From what I'm reading, it's recommended closer to 60% w/ a 5-10% bump the last 3 days. Seems so antithetical to what we do, but states higher hatch weights and rates.
I liked doing the weigh ins. I'm able to muster more free time than you, and have a lack of trust in accuracy of gauges. Can't say it improved my hatch rate, but I think we can confidently agree that main cause was user error-w/exception of flawed air cells, inwhich case it was probably a lost cause. But they grew so well -until they stopped.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Aw, I'm sorry-and so glad I'm not doing it this year. Despite not incubating this yr, I still like reading different research.
From what I'm reading, it's recommended closer to 60% w/ a 5-10% bump the last 3 days. Seems so antithetical to what we do, but states higher hatch weights and rates.
I liked doing the weigh ins. I'm able to muster more free time than you, and have a lack of trust in accuracy of gauges. Can't say it improved my hatch rate, but I think we can confidently agree that main cause was user error-w/exception of flawed air cells, inwhich case it was probably a lost cause. But they grew so well -until they stopped.

Well my record keeping is kind of crappy, but I’ve been trying to figure out what I’ve changed that is giving me such poor hatch rates. First year was a hovabator still air styrofoam incubator. It was ancient with the wafer thermostat. I followed its directions and incubated about 50% humidity and turned by hand - great hatch, then a few more great hatches. Gave the incubator back to its owner and got a forced air hovabator with turner. Set temperature and humidity as before - awful hatch rate. This was when I started experimenting. Lowered the temperature and dry hatch next time (changed two things at once so I don’t know what worked) - good (but not great) hatch. So that’s when I stuck with dry hatching after that.

Last year was about like this year - latest hatch was 14/35 fertilized eggs. Last year I realized that turner was only kind of working, like it would turn some but not fully. I also noted that air cells seemed very large. So I thought both the turner and low humidity might be at fault. I didn’t want to change two things again so replaced the turner this year. Most of the keets that hatched this year hatched normally and at a normal time, 26-28 days after setting. But there were again many that failed to internally pip or died after internally pipping. Another that died after external pip, and when I tried to assist, it’s pip was covered with a concrete hard membrane, despite humidity being >65%.

With so many keets clearly dead in shell on day 28, I found one keet still alive and internally pipped but not externally pipped. I decided to assist and that’s been a huge struggle. When I opened the shell, keet already had a hardened and adherent membrane, even though this was my first time opening incubator since lockdown and raising humidity. I slowly got the keet freed from membranes - it was totally shrink wrapped and had vessels and yolk and… blah. It took about 12 hours of patient work to get it out of the shell, and then I regretted it because the keet just laid on its side and weakly peeped. I was sure I’d have to put it down the next day, but amazingly that keet has come around. I had to put it in a sling so it would get the idea of how to stand, and I’m treating it for splayed legs, but it’s finally strong enough to join its siblings in the brooder. And then I lost a lavender brooder keet. Bleh. It’s waiting in the fridge for me to necropsy it, if I get it together enough to do so. At any rate, I need to do one more hatch this year so I can see if increasing incubation humidity will help my problem.

The only bright spot for this year is that I’m getting some of the keet colors I’d hoped for. I think I have a chocolate in the brooder, and a buyer sent me this pic of a slate keet she hatched from my eggs! Also sent me this lavender something pic. I can’t tell from the pic if it’s a lavender or something more exotic. I think I’m also getting some pintos, but they are not really well marked and are more like in between pied and pinto.

 

[Sydney65]

Well my record keeping is kind of crappy, but I’ve been trying to figure out what I’ve changed that is giving me such poor hatch rates. First year was a hovabator still air styrofoam incubator. It was ancient with the wafer thermostat. I followed its directions and incubated about 50% humidity and turned by hand - great hatch, then a few more great hatches. Gave the incubator back to its owner and got a forced air hovabator with turner. Set temperature and humidity as before - awful hatch rate. This was when I started experimenting. Lowered the temperature and dry hatch next time (changed two things at once so I don’t know what worked) - good (but not great) hatch. So that’s when I stuck with dry hatching after that.

Last year was about like this year - latest hatch was 14/35 fertilized eggs. Last year I realized that turner was only kind of working, like it would turn some but not fully. I also noted that air cells seemed very large. So I thought both the turner and low humidity might be at fault. I didn’t want to change two things again so replaced the turner this year. Most of the keets that hatched this year hatched normally and at a normal time, 26-28 days after setting. But there were again many that failed to internally pip or died after internally pipping. Another that died after external pip, and when I tried to assist, it’s pip was covered with a concrete hard membrane, despite humidity being >65%.

With so many keets clearly dead in shell on day 28, I found one keet still alive and internally pipped but not externally pipped. I decided to assist and that’s been a huge struggle. When I opened the shell, keet already had a hardened and adherent membrane, even though this was my first time opening incubator since lockdown and raising humidity. I slowly got the keet freed from membranes - it was totally shrink wrapped and had vessels and yolk and… blah. It took about 12 hours of patient work to get it out of the shell, and then I regretted it because the keet just laid on its side and weakly peeped. I was sure I’d have to put it down the next day, but amazingly that keet has come around. I had to put it in a sling so it would get the idea of how to stand, and I’m treating it for splayed legs, but it’s finally strong enough to join its siblings in the brooder. And then I lost a lavender brooder keet. Bleh. It’s waiting in the fridge for me to necropsy it, if I get it together enough to do so. At any rate, I need to do one more hatch this year so I can see if increasing incubation humidity will help my problem.

The only bright spot for this year is that I’m getting some of the keet colors I’d hoped for. I think I have a chocolate in the brooder, and a buyer sent me this pic of a slate keet she hatched from my eggs! Also sent me this lavender something pic. I can’t tell from the pic if it’s a lavender or something more exotic. I think I’m also getting some pintos, but they are not re ally well marked and are more like in between pied and pinto.

She's pretty, whatever it may be. I guess if the hatcher says it's lavender in person that's more a curate than a pic.
I looked up, bc I remember when trying to decide what to get, reading pros/cons of diff incubators. It was always recommended to wrap a towel around the styrofoam ones to hold in heat & humidity. So I went back and looked, the issue was that they're more sensitive to changes in room conditions.
I think to a degree that's true of all of them.I remember pulling the DEhumidifier into the room during a rainy week bc I could not get the humidity down in the unit even though I completely dried it out. I remember reading other ppl moving their unit to different places bc they couldn't regulate temp inside. So if you adjust your thermostat at home for periods when you aren't there, or if you had my dtr, who always cranked the ac when I wasn't home -
I had wondered how units compete with room air. Yours doesn't have a fan, right? So you have to have it set at higher temp to begin with.
With mine, if you leave the vents wide open & the fan is running, then it seems like it would always be drawing in room air at whatever temp & humidity it is, possibly cooling or increasing/decreasing humidity.
I don't know if that makes sense or I just over think things. But I ended up closing the register in that room and leaving the door cracked. It did seem to help stabilize the unit.
Here's 4 of mine this week-6wks. They crack me up. The shed floor is resin, so they're constantly running back and forth, thump thump thump. The other 3 must've been thumping at this particular moment.

Scratch that, you said you have forced air.

 

[Moonbeam Guineas]

Yes and it was terrible! As bad as last years hatch, which I blamed on the failed turner. I got a new turner, which worked fine, and still a bad hatch. Trying to raise humidity to 45-50% instead of dry incubate as my next troubleshooting step.

I keep my humidity between 30-45% (I live in high humidity) and add a bit of water if needed. I dont trust my gauges on the incubators so I put a small reptile temp/humidity gauge in the incubator and check it daily. At the last 5 days (lock down) I increase to 50-60%.