Guineas finaly laying, Would the eggs be fertile?

[Wild Chicken]

We just waited until she came to the coop for her daily meal (ours free range) and snuck to the nest and took the eggs.

 

[greathorse]

I didnt worry about getting attacked but they will move a nest in a heartbeat. So if you have a fair amount of cover you may have a hard time finding the next nest. Someone posted that they replaced with golf balls or chicken eggs or some such they swore the guinea could count.

ETA: Welcome to the land down under. Visited your contintent some time ago had an awesome time. I got to see the Melbourne Cup what a day that was. I was on the infield and YIKES what a party.

 

[guinea fowl galore]

all went well and i sucesfully got three eggs ( I didn't want to push my luck ) but she spent the rest of the day down at the house not up near the nest where she usually hangs around, I don't know if that really counts as anything or not though.

Am I wasting my time trying to hatch them? i have them in the incubator now but I've heard that in the first season that they lay the eggs arn't very fertile. My guineas are a year old now and started mating at about seven months old. I really hope they're fertile though.

 

[greathorse]

Mine were fertile in the first year very shortly after they began laying I had a great hatch rate with mine. I had a broody that hatched a few as well.

 

[guinea fowl galore]

I've decided to keep six eggs in the nest and colect the others.
right now i have seven eggs in the incubator. I hope all is fine.
What does everybody use to candle the guinea eggs? I've heard they have very thick shells.

 

[guinea fowl galore]

bad news, I think she may have moved her nest but i think i may know where the new one is, which is good.

 

[damselfish]

I had people do fine last year hatching eggs from my young guineas. I had also heard that they were unlikely to be fertile since they were first-year eggs laid early in the season, but that didn't hold true for mine.

I did OK on candling later in the year with the typical flashlight and tube setup, but I wasn't looking for fine detail, just "is there something in there?". It seemed like I could see quite a bit though. Good luck!

 

[guinea fowl galore]

I realised today that the eggs will hatch on the 22 an 23 of december. I hope they don't hatch late as we're not going to be here on christmas.
i candled yesterday so I could compare what they look like in a few days and i cold see the yolk in all of them and some had a darker small dot in the middle of the yolk. I didn't have a bright enough light though to see things clearly. oh and i have one huge egg and when i candled it it looked like there was a longer smallish dark spot.