Uh oh... found an egg today! ... - A journal of sorts, from finding eggs to hatching them... Update

[PeepsCA]

PeepsCA, I covet all your various colors in your Guineas. I would love to bring some more along, although we are doing quail this year. We are also "incubating" a foal, which we hope to meet in the next 10-15 days. Cross your fingers all goes well with that, I'm a nervous mama. I'll get some pics up of my Guineas soon.

Ohhhhhh, I'm so jealous you have a mare about to foal!!!!! I'd be a nervous wreck too. I'm sure all will go fine! I've wanted to breed one of my mares for years and years (or all of them, I have 5 mares that would throw nice foals, lol). I've just never gotten the pieces to all fall into place and make it happen yet. A friend of mine does have a Paint stud I've been thinking about tho...



When I "adopted" my pair of minis (a mini hippo sized mare and a stud), the mare was supposed to be due within a few months, so I was all excited about expecting a little tiny mini foal. Turned out the mini mare was just obese with thyroid/fertility issues tho, lmao.

I wanna see pics of the foal, so be sure to take lots of pics!

 

[PeepsCA]

Beautiful! I love all the different shades of brown--even though I can't tell what all of them are. What does cinnamon look like? I know you said the last batch of keets had some, but I'm not familiar with that color.

I will definitely let you know what we get from this flock--I'm really hoping our blonde boy hooks up with the purple and lavender females, instead of the pearls. He seems like he's eyeing them, but they free range during the day and all roost together at night, so I can only hope!

Congrats on your successful hatches! Keep posting the pics!

What I call Cinnamons in my flocks, some breeders call Browns, (but what some breeders call Browns in their flocks, I call Cinnamons, lol). Really the only "true Cinnamons" are in Australia, and they have red eyes. We don't have any Guineas with red eyed over here int he US. The color is lighter than Brown, darker than Buff Dundotte... somewhere in the middle.

Turned out only one of the keets from the 1st batch looks like a Cinnamon to me now, I'll get a pic of him/her and post it later. And so far in the last batch I can't really tell yet, I've been too busy to really handle them much and get a good look at each keet yet. I'll look for some good pics of my Cinnamons adults for you when I have time too.

Next batch of eggs goes into lock down either tonight or tomorrow morning....

 

[Country Chickens]

Wow, nother batch? Your birds mean business! Our female stopped laying when it got cold again. This last few days it was a little warmer--60s--so we thought she might start up...but today it snowed.

So, might be a wait. At least maybe when she starts back up the rest will join her. They are all the same age, and I'd love to start getting little piles of eggs each day instead of one and one and one!

Cinnamon sounds interesting! I love how guinea colors never seem to be entirely pinned down. Keeps us on our toes, eh? A pic of your adults would be awesome, just when you get the chance. In the mean time, I'll keep drooling over your keets!

 

[PeepsCA]

You can store your eggs from up to 10-14 days in a cool dark spot like in the back of a closet, in an unheated room?), just make sure to tilt/turn them at least once a day... that way you can set more than just a few at a time. Do you have a separate hatcher? (I forget if I've asked you this already)? Because the eggs that are going to hatch need a different incubator temp and higher humidity than the eggs that are still incubating... (which can harm/kill the incubating eggs).

I only have somewhere between 9 and 12 Hens laying so far... but I have 45 Hens, so eventually when all 45 are laying daily... I'll be swimming in eggs, lol.


PS... I try to set only 42 eggs each week, and then try to give away or eat the others... lol. Otherwise I'd be setting close to 70-80 eggs a week

 

[Country Chickens]

70-80...70-80 eggs...just a minute, my brain will catch up! lol

That's a lot of little keets zipping around! No wonder you have so many pics!!!

So far what I'm doing is collecting the eggs for ten days, then incubating them with my silkie eggs in the Brinsea incubator. When it comes time to hatch, they get moved (this part is planned, but will be executed soon) to the hovabator cause I've found it holds humidity at high levels better than the LG. If the silkie hatches and the guinea hatches overlap, the silkies get the LG. Poor silkies, getting dissed like that.

lol But, the LG hatches silkies okay with enough tlc. What I'd like to do is use the Brinsea for hatching--it has the automatic humdity pump and is super cool. I'm on the lookout for a used cabinet so I can do that...but they are hard to find. As more birds keep laying this spring, I may just have to buy a cabinet new...and can't say I'd mind that much cause I can't wait to start simplifying the bator thing a bit! Oh, and I store them in our basement at about 55-60 and turn them each day. So far that's worked with the silkies. Hoping it will keep the guinea keets happy, too!

 

[PeepsCA]

70-80...70-80 eggs...just a minute, my brain will catch up! lol

That's a lot of little keets zipping around! No wonder you have so many pics!!!

So far what I'm doing is collecting the eggs for ten days, then incubating them with my silkie eggs in the Brinsea incubator. When it comes time to hatch, they get moved (this part is planned, but will be executed soon) to the hovabator cause I've found it holds humidity at high levels better than the LG. If the silkie hatches and the guinea hatches overlap, the silkies get the LG. Poor silkies, getting dissed like that.

lol But, the LG hatches silkies okay with enough tlc. What I'd like to do is use the Brinsea for hatching--it has the automatic humdity pump and is super cool. I'm on the lookout for a used cabinet so I can do that...but they are hard to find. As more birds keep laying this spring, I may just have to buy a cabinet new...and can't say I'd mind that much cause I can't wait to start simplifying the bator thing a bit! Oh, and I store them in our basement at about 55-60 and turn them each day. So far that's worked with the silkies. Hoping it will keep the guinea keets happy, too!

LOL cool, sounds like you are a hatch-o-holic too!!!! (I want to get some Silkies baaaad, but I'm sure I'd get out of control with them like I have with Guineas, lol). Your hatching method of madness is pretty similar to mine with the separate hatcher and moving eggs around for lockdown/hatch, lol. I need some simplification too, so a cabinet incubator has been on my wishlist for quite a while, I just don't want to cough up all that money for one yet (I want a new Dickey), at least not until I have all my flocks NPIP certified and I'm licensed to ship keets anywhere in the US as soon as they hatch. I'm kinda worried I'll burn out on hatching tho, and only use my Dickey for one season and not give it much of a chance to pay for itself

(Same reason I came close to buying a Brinsea 40 with all the bells and whistles, but never did). Selling keets locally can be a pain, and sometimes the numbers start piling up in between sales... and then all the feeding, watering and brooder cleaning/bedding changes are what I least enjoy about hatching, blah!

I use my LGs for hatching too, cuz that's about all I trust them for lol, (I've added inexpensive PC fans to them, so they are at least circulated air). I have to fill all the troughs and add wet sponges that usually need to be re-soaked 3-4 times during a normal lockdown, cuz the average humidity level here is only about 25% (unless it's actually raining out), and around half that during the summers. When the Humidity is starting to get low in the LGs, I'll give the eggs a fine mist while I have it open to re-soak the sponges or to check eggs etc. It's a hassle, but they work. Just can't bring myself to hatch in my 1588's, keets make such a mess while they are running around fluffing and drying... I really don't want to submit my nice clean 1588s to that yuck and muck at this point, lol.

Speaking of LGs, sounds like keet #1 (for batch #3) just worked his/her way out of his shell, pretty noisy over there... I'm gonna go see what he/she is.

 

[Country Chickens]

The good news about cabinet incubators is, so far as I can see, you don't have to resell at a very big loss. So, if you did burn out, the incubator would only need to have paid for the difference between the new and used prices, plus shipping. That's how I figure it. But then, I am the world's worst enabler! lol One thing I've found helps to get the LGs humidity up is filling empty baby food jars or a small-ish mugs with water, then sticking the sponge straight up in the mug so it acts as a wick. 'Course, maybe that's what you're doing! I can get the humidity pretty high that way, but I still don't like my LG cause the temperature is so unreliable--ours will swing from 98 flat to peaking over 100 without any toggle or adjustment made. Very annoying. Really makes me wish I'd had the sense in the beginning to go straight to a hovabator...

Good luck with this next hatch! Time for me to candle the guinea eggs and see if we'll have any hatching this weekend!

 

[PeepsCA]

That's an excellent idea about the baby food jars and using the sponge as a wick! I'm going to try that, Thanks!!! (Sometimes I have extra large hatches/eggs everywhere and no extra room in there tho, lol.)

I usually just lay the sponges on the floor of the hatcher that's covered with rubberized shelf liner (or stand them up on their edges and line put them against the side of the incubator base and I'll either just lift the lid and pour warm water right into/onto the sponges or I'll take them out, wash/rinse them out and put them back in almost dripping wet. The keets of course knock em down and or climb all over them, so the keets stay wet longer and they also poop on them... and I'm a neat freak (uh huh, OCD lol) about their first little green baby poops staining everything, so it's a drag, but your idea will prevent that

OK, off to look thru my collection of jars. Good luck with the candling!

 

[PeepsCA]

Quote:
Here's a pic showing the keet I call Cinnamon (he's Pied tho) in my first 2012 hatch. Not the best pic, the color is a little light on him, cuz I used the flash and it looks like it really lit him up good lol, but if you can tell... there's an ashy, almost greyish tint to the center stripe of his head, and also his body feathers growing in have an ashy tint to them too compared to the Browns' feathers. Hope that helps.



And here's the first keet from Hatch #3, early, on day 24... found his egg pipped last night when I was candling as I was moving Batch # 3 to the hatcher. (Really crappy pic, sorry, the camera lens kept foggin' up so I backed way up and zoomed in... bad idea, lol). He looks a little ashy colored... so this one might be a Cinnamon too (not Pied). Might be a Brown male tho. We'll see.

 

[Country Chickens]

Hmmm...something more colorwise to think about! I love that look--it's like the regular brown but with a wild tang! I think the hardest (and most thrilling!) part of guineas is trying to guess the colors while they're keets. I suck at it, but thankfully my dh is much better. We like our flock free-ranging cause otherwise we have a serious tick problem, but even if I could pen them I'm not sure I would. The genetic soup is half the fun! lol

I'm glad you like the water jar idea and the sponge as a wick, but I confess, I didn't come up with it. I think I found it somewhere here. No surprise that, eh? This place rocks!

When I decided to try it, I went out and bought four baby food jars from the store, cause my youngest is ten and I don't think either of my kids ever ate baby food. Then when I got desperate for higher humidity I discovered that short mugs also work, and since we can't seem to take a family vacation without someone bringing home a mug...voila! I've found a use for all those extra mugs! Personally, I buy a big pack of sponges from Walmart and cut them down to wick size so I can throw them out if I want. Most can be washed okay...but some I just can't make myself re-use. Especially if I used the sponge to wet down a chicks membrane, which I've been known to do. Watched too many germ-phobic discovery shows, I guess. Do you put yours through the dishwasher, or what?

Waiting for Silkie batch number two to pip. Haven't set up the LG yet...the last hatch ran late so the bleach job is still airing. On the one hand, if they wait to hatch til tomorrow I can still switch them over in the morning. On the other hand, I can't help it. I still start to wonder if I candled them wrong or something went haywire whenever they run anything but exactly on time.

I'm even worse with guineas--fretting, I mean. Just watch, this weekend when the guinea eggs go in, I'm going to be sending stress waves so strong you'll pick up on them all the way across the country! What percentage hatch rates to you get, if you don't mind my asking? Meaning from the eggs that were actually fertile and viable. Just wondering what is possible and what to shoot for...also how to try and set reasonable expectations. With so few eggs going in, it's hard to be philosophical about losing any.

Sorry, quick edit cause I realized I never reported the candling! This first batch started with seven eggs. I candled early, but couldn't see much and got busy so didn't do it again til now. They go into lockdown Friday, so this time I could see pretty good. Three weren't fertilized (totally clear) but the other four look good. These were our girls very first eggs, so I'm pleased that we may have some chicks. Now if they can just come our without a hitch I'll be cured of all hatching stress for life!

Not! LOL