New to Guineas ?

[ColbyNTX]

I have hatched many chicks and this is my first run at guineas. I have a Dickey's cabinet bator that runs perfectly. I had a batch of chicks hatch tuesday at 21 days on the button. Today is day 24 for the keets and I am out of town and my 10 year old just call and said there are 2 keets in the turning tray! Is this normal to hatch so early for guineas? I know the temp has been 99.5-99.9 the whole time. I had my son move the keets in the brooder with the new chicks and the eggs to the hatching tray. I feed Purina medicated chick starter. Can this harm keets or should I leave them on this a few days or make a mixture of game bird? I will move them to the Purina Game bird when I get home this evening and can set up another brooder.

Thanks

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Your thermometer is probably off just a little bit, if your chicks are hatching right on time your temp is probably about 100F. We run ours setup for chickens and ours hatch early as well. The only ones that take longer to hatch are the jumbo's and that is because the eggs are bigger. They can eat the chick starter but they do need more protien. We give ours a 28% game bird starter and they grow like weeds on it.

Steve in NC

 

[shelleyd2008]

A good friend of mine told me that guinea eggs in an incubator won't go the full 28 days....I think he is right. I have yet to have any guineas hatch at 28 days, normally it's more like 25.
Higher protein is better, though I feed mine a non-medicated 20% feed and they do fine on that. I feed everything 20% feed starting out, quail, ducks, chicks, geese, keets...it might take them a bit longer to reach full size, but they still grow just as big.

 

[Guinea Goonie]

I have heard the Guinea eggs will go about 25 to 27 days in an incubator.

This is probably becuase of the humidity.

Your keets are not as hardy as chicken chicks up to about 2 weeks.

Put them on starter ONLY and keep fresh water and MAKE SURE it is clean.

You can use ACV in a small amounts and keep a heat lamp on them 24/7, but the temp does not have to be 95 degree F, 85 to 90 will do.

After two weeks your keets become a good deal stronger and hardier than a chicken chick.

Then you can start using 50 percent starter and 50 percent game bird feed.

Keep this going until they are about 10 weeks old, them you can stop the starter.

Start looking for the female call at about 9 weeks of age and DO mark the females and males using leg bands so you know which is which.

Keets are ready to go to the flock at about age 12 weeks, but you need to watch them and make sure they are not being put in a corner and starved by the others in the flock.

If you can get your newbies to hitch up with a few established Guineas in you flock, you have it made.

 

[ColbyNTX]

Thanks for all the advice. These are my first Guineas, so is it good to leave them on chick starter (medicated) for the first 2 weeks then feed a 50/50 mixture of that and the game bird for a few mory weeks? I have hatched about 100 chicken chicks this summer and only have lost 1 but I know keets are not chickens.