Patiently waiting but a little worried

[larajmd]

Hi there

I am currently waiting for my first batch of guinea keets to hatch.

We invested in an octagon Bater last month.
We are now day 30 for the keets and no sign of a hatch yet.

I have candled them and they are developed and active still.
I have learnt about putting them on lockdown. Which they have been on since about day 26.

This is my first time hatching anything in an incubater so I have been a little obssessive about taking good care of these babies.

As you can imagine I'm now worrying that its gone past day 28 and no sign yet.

Any advice would be much appreciated

 

[Sage874]

No advice but plenty of support. My first clutch of 22 guinea eggs are in the bater now due to hatch the 28th or so.
A great book to get is "Gardening with Guineas". It says 28 days but can take a bit longer. I have a HovaBater w/ air and an egg turner.
I hope you get some hatchlings.

 

[larajmd]

Thanks Sage

Was thinking of investing in a book

Think I'm going to squeal with excitement when something starts happening

 

[PeepsCA]

30 days? It is not common for Guinea eggs to go that long, especially in a good quality incubator. Did you count the day you set them as day 1? If so, then they are at 29 days (you start counting day 1 the day after they are set)... but an entire batch of eggs going 29 days isn't common either. Your incubator temp may be too low, which would be what is delaying the hatch... so after this hatch you may want to double check your temp with a couple of good/accurate thermometers placed in different areas inside the unit.

Hope you see some pipping and zipping by today.

Cross your fingers for healthy keets. Good luck.

 

[larajmd]

The incubator has a built in digital thermometer. should I get another to go in it? if so what brand is best?

I got everything crossed too Peeps. thanks for the reply

 

[PeepsCA]

All of my thermometers are digital thermometer/hygrometer combo units... and some are better than others, but the most accurate one I have/use is the one I ordered from CutlerSupply.com 4+yrs ago, and I don't know if they still sell the same one

Here's a link to a thread about hygrometers where I posted links to a few of the combo units that I use.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/807188/question-for-peepsca#post_11682381

Some people swear by the little floating glass fish tank thermometers as far as temp accuracy goes, plus they are inexpensive (unfortunately they don't always get along with automatic egg turners tho,

lol). Whatever you decide to buy/use you don't necessarily have to leave it in the incubator during incubation, but at least you can run the incubator for a while with something else in there for a while and get an idea if the built in electronic thermometer is off by a couple of degrees or not.

Any pips or hatching going on yet???

 

[larajmd]

Omg you would not believe what happened. For some reason, overnight the incubators temp went right down. The eggs were cold this morning.

I have checked for movement and 4 out of 7 are moving still. But its day 31 now. So getting even more worried.

Don't know.what happened to.make the temp decrease. All I can think is that I left the menu selection page open without saving. But it seems odd that the temp would decrease just because of this

 

[PeepsCA]

Dang, what a bummer THAT had to happen after what you are already going thru with these eggs.

But exactly how cold is cold? Mostly developed keets can and do generate some of their own heat, so I would not give up on any of the 7 yet. Where is your incubator sitting? Is it in the house where the ambient room temp stays fairly stable, or is it out in a barn or shed?

31 days, and not even a pip yet is not good... your incubator temp has to be somewhere around 5 or more degrees off or something, ugh!

 

[larajmd]

Well the temp read 25 degrees and the eggs felt cold.

just candles them this evening and they are all still moving insid except one.

until they stop moving I'm going to stick with it.

 

[larajmd]

Oh and the incubator is in the house so temperature stable