Guinea fowl egg hatching now!

[HarmonyHen]

Hi all,

I have 3 female guineas who have been tag-brooding a nest for over a month now. I noticed that all were outside together a little bit ago and decided to go inside to investigate since i haven't been able to get at the nest in weeks...wanted to candle a couple to see if any were developed/developing. Much to my surprise, one egg was cracked and I could see movement inside. When mama squawked, it answered back with chirps! Several more appear to be developed. So...now what? I have brooded chickens before but they were already hatched...do I take the eggs in anticipation of them hatching and bring them into a brooder box inside? Let the mamas take care of them? I know they are notoriously poor mums. I don't really have a set up to keep a mom and the littles separate. I had suspected that they were going to be duds based on my one opportunity to check them and the brooding seemed to be going on far longer than a month.

I can raise the keets, its just a matter of taking the eggs now or waiting until they hatch.

Can they be outside in the coop 24/7? Its high 70s low 80s during the day and 60s-70s at night...the coop stays warmer at night.

At what rate (# per day) might they hatch? The hens laid anywhere from 1-3 eggs per day when I was "stealing" them initially. I have a clutch of approx. 25 eggs.

 

[GitaBooks]

The mommas are made to raise chicks in a day land, so they have problems in tall, damp grass. If it is dry and warm, they should be okay. You can take them if you want, though the mommas will get unhappy after all that work and no chicks. You could let them keep a few and take the rest. I'm not sure when they will hatch, but if they don't hatch after a couple days, you should put them in a warm, humid incubator (home-made, borrowed, bought) to help them hatch.

Best of luck!

 

[HarmonyHen]

Well, after doing a little more searching and seeing all the ladies outside again (a rare sight in the past 6 weeks) I went into the coop again and snooped around. In the pine shavings I found 2 little bodies . We had been away for the weekend and I didn't expect littles so I didn't have food and water inside the coop - it was outside in the run. They looked fully developed...but the weird thing is there were no egg fragments or remnants. Which is another reason I didn't think to look more closely at the nest when we cam home Sunday.

Anyway, given this development, I set up a DIY incubator in the house with a styro cooler and brooder light, and took all the eggs inside. i checked each for development and found only 2 eggs that appeared to have zero development. Several appear to be in later development stages so I am hopeful. No other internal pipping yet, though. The little guy that is pipping (hole the size of pea) seems to be doing ok so far, though I am not intervening. He will come out in his own time.

I put a thermometer in the 'bator along with a small damp sponge to keep the humidity up. Brooder box is set up for if/when they hatch.

The mamas seemed a little miffed at first, but then proceeded to go back outside and run around. So far so good. Now we wait.

 

[GitaBooks]

I'm sorry about the chicks. But I'm glad everything else seems to be working out well!

 

[HarmonyHen]

Well, the keet from Monday hatched all the way out by Tuesday @ 6 AM and is happily eating, drinking, and exploring his/her brooder box. I've had several batches of chicks so it was easy to set up quickly for the little guy. However, none of the rest of the eggs in my DIY 'bator are showing any signs of new hatches. I'm hopeful that we'll get a couple more. I'm going to raise them inside like my chicks until we determine how many we're likely to have...I cannot keep 40 keets...and I plan to sell them if we end up with more than 5. There's a pretty good market for them here in western PA as we have an awful tick problem.