Guinea fowl

[R2elk]

Well, alrighty then.

There is nothing wrong with using the term male but rooster is a chicken, not a guinea.

 

[hailie16727]

hello everyone thought i would update you all i had my guinea fowl in the run for a few weeks because we have had problems with predators and im happy to say they started laying in the coop we now have a broody hen sitting on eggs and this is day 6 i candled on and there is a little life in ther which melts my heart i hope she stays on them as she is only about 10 months old and this is her first time being broody and she is a laying mix so fingers crossed november we will have guniea keets if not i will buy an icubator i would love some incubator recomendation (i live in australia so please keep in mind i wont be able to purchase US brands) my budget is $250ish and i would love to have about 18 at a times so if anyone has a nice incubator with a high hatch rate drop in in the thread please and thankyou

 

[SamLockwood]

I started out using a Nurture Right 360 incubator and the hatch rates were not that great with the guineas. I thought maybe it was my inexperience but the last hatch I did I did an equal amount of eggs for chickens and guineas (11 each) and I had 7 chickens and only 2 guineas make it.

For my last hatching this fall I got a Maticoopx 30 egg incubator as well as a supplemental thermometer to monitor the temperature along with the built in gauges.

About this time unfortunately my guineas stopped laying so I only had chicken eggs for comparison, however even with the them I got a much better hatching rate: I put 18 in and got only one blood ring in week two, and 17 of the remaining 16 hatched. Plus I had no spraddle-leg problems with this batch (where before I'd usually get a chick or keet with a leg problem, easily treated but still...).

I did some other things differently this time around too: including having a supplemental thermometer / hygrometer because when I did a dry run both incubators were inaccurate as to what their temperature / humidity is. When the guineas start laying again next spring I'll do a side by side hatch-off to see which one is actually better.