guinea eggs

[deineria]

A friend gave me a bunch of bantam eggs with some guinea eggs mixed in - I put them all in the bator, not thinking about the guineas having a longer incubation period and the fact
the eggs aren't labeled. . .
How - if I can - can I tell the bantam from the guinea eggs so that I move those into the other bator before lockdown on the bantams?

 

[Wisher1000]

I can tell the difference in mine pretty easily, the trick is telling you how to tell! Okay, first the guinea eggs are "squattier" than the chicken eggs. More of a pyramid shape than egg shaped. They are as fat on the rounded end but pointier on the other end and the angle between is greater. Does that make sense? If you took a bantam egg and stood it on the round end and squished it down without loosing the point it would look like a guinea egg. Also the guinea eggs get rougher looking as they age, splotchy, whereas the chicken eggs look pretty much the same throughout the hatch. That may just be under a broody, though, I've never hatched them in a bator. I think the guinea eggs would be heavier, too, because of the thicker shells. All my guinea eggs are light medium brown (except I did have one that was white, once!) If you posted pics, I could help you decide...

 

[deineria]

Thanks - will do tomorrow -
I was guessing the thicker feeling shells, rougher textures and larger eggs were guinea - but I am not sure - not sure if shape seems very different - I'll post pics tomorrow

 

[MuranoFarms]

This is a bad quality photo (cell phone) but hopefully it will help:

The guinea eggs are the 3 in the bottom row and the 3 on the right in the middle row.

 

[MuranoFarms]

Or just candle the eggs.....the bantams should be almost completely full, the Guinea eggs should still be developing.

 

[TexGardenGirl]

Quote:
Yes, my guinea eggs are rougher feeling and less shiny than the chicken eggs, and just feel sturdier. But occasionally when the girls have a glitch, I'll get a chicken egg that's rough too, so really the shape difference is best. Once you know the difference and see a few and handle them it's easy to tell. One of my guineas lays a pretty big egg that always fools me into thinking it's a chicken egg until I pick it up, and of course it's the only guinea who lays in the nest box! (she thinks she's a chicken!)
MuranoFarms has excellent pictures.

 

[deineria]

I'm not sure any of them look like the pictures - lol -
here are some - some I threw in because i'm sure they ARE bantams. . .
just to compare

 

[deineria]

anyone?

 

[Jocasta]

The one on the left in both the fifth and sixth photos I'd say were guinea, although none of them look as pointy as the guinea eggs I've seen before. How many guinea eggs did you say you had?

Also, I'd said it on the other thread and someone else has said it here - candle them. This will likely be the easiest way as the bantam eggs will be much more developed and the embryo in the guinea eggs will be much smaller. If you don't have a candler, you can make one pretty quickly with stuff you likely already have around the house. I used a lamp, a open can with a hole cut out of the in tact end. The hole is about 1-2cm and perfect size. I used a black sock around the bottom of the can to focus the light up. It's worked really well and didn't cost me anything... I recommend that you wait until nightfall to candle them though and turn all the lights off - increases visibility significantly. Failing that, if you have a powerful torch, you can cup your hand around that and focus the light into the egg, again this is easier when it's dark.

 

[racuda]

None of them look like guinea eggs to me. Guinea eggs are more pointy, brown and slightly speckled.