Im in my third year of successful Guinea incubating. I had to literally learn on the go as my Guinea eggs rolled out of the nest, dropped down a 7 foot cement retaining wall and sat for who knows how many hours. I scooped them up, fired up my incubator for literally the first time incubating eggs in it! Oh and started crossing my fingers and praying. Luckily my incubator heats up fairly quick and I got the humidity balanced. But like you I had to calculate how long hen had been on the nest. Oh and adding to the situation of calculation we had been on a cross country trip to my daughters wedding. I candled them 5 days later and was amazed to see the little squigglers were alive! Tough birds in an even tougher egg! Babies were born 3 weeks later roughly. Now looking back I am even more surprised that they made it since when they rolled they were in the first week of development which is when they are the most fragile.
In regards to taking mom's eggs away, I never wanted to, but historically I have the worst Guinea mom's to date. In tried leaving the eggs that didn't roll out with Mom, but I had to go out and rescue more as mom had gotten up in mid hatch with 4 hatched babies and took off to forage. By the time I realized this, almost evening time, I was horrified to find about 8 eggs in various stages of hatch. I grabbed them up and took them inside to check. I was further amazed to find that allfof these courageous babies were still alive! Most of them are still alive today, 2 years làter. The second thing that cemented my decision to bring the kids inside was when mom and the aunts jumped d9wn the 7 foot cement retaining wall and expected the remaining three chicks to follow. They hesitated but finally leapt. Boy was I proud of them! But that was short-lived because 15 minutes later mom decided to take her babies down to the creek for a swim!!! I was able to rescue one but couldn't find the other one ever. Many people have specifically told me that Guinea fowl do not make good mother's by nature. I thought that meant hatching, but no. I think it just means as a whole.which is too bad,since I like to humanize my birds, and that makes it especially sad when I take their babies to raise. Anywho now that I shared that,
Good luck with your babies!
In regards to taking mom's eggs away, I never wanted to, but historically I have the worst Guinea mom's to date. In tried leaving the eggs that didn't roll out with Mom, but I had to go out and rescue more as mom had gotten up in mid hatch with 4 hatched babies and took off to forage. By the time I realized this, almost evening time, I was horrified to find about 8 eggs in various stages of hatch. I grabbed them up and took them inside to check. I was further amazed to find that allfof these courageous babies were still alive! Most of them are still alive today, 2 years làter. The second thing that cemented my decision to bring the kids inside was when mom and the aunts jumped d9wn the 7 foot cement retaining wall and expected the remaining three chicks to follow. They hesitated but finally leapt. Boy was I proud of them! But that was short-lived because 15 minutes later mom decided to take her babies down to the creek for a swim!!! I was able to rescue one but couldn't find the other one ever. Many people have specifically told me that Guinea fowl do not make good mother's by nature. I thought that meant hatching, but no. I think it just means as a whole.which is too bad,since I like to humanize my birds, and that makes it especially sad when I take their babies to raise. Anywho now that I shared that,
Good luck with your babies!
