Very bad guinea hatch

[cbourbeau32]

I have a hovabator 1588 that I have ran two batches of chicken eggs through with a 75% plus hatch rate on both. I put 30 guinea eggs in it and instead of leaving it set right where it did so well on chicken eggs I followed some instructions I found on a legitimate website that called for the temp to be slighly lower than my owners manual called for and then a full degree lower than that from lockdown on. At 14 days I had 25 of the 30 that showed good developement and most showed movement inside the egg during candling. Hatch started on day 28 and only 7 hatched alive (one died right after hatching) and two or three of those don't look healthy. Several more started peeping only do die before getting out of the shell. I'm picking up some more eggs this afternoon and my plan is to go back to the settings that worked so well for my chicken eggs and stick with those settings. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks, Charlie

 

[B520]

I would say stick with the manual for your specific incubator if it has instructions for guinea?

I know some baters have a fan and require one temp for chickens while those without fans turn it up higher because the air isn't as evenly heated.

Sorry I can't offer much help here, wish u better luck with the next batch!

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I hatch my guineas using generally the same settings as my chicks. I do have to keep my humidity a little higher but only slightly (with chicks I am usually around 30% but for guineas I keep it around 40%). It has taken much trial and error. Right now I'm on my sixth hatch and out of 21 I have 18 out so far. Before I was having a high number quit right at hatch or die during or right after hatching. The only thing Ii changed is the humidity. I am also only hatching at 55% now instead of 70+ like I read elsewhere.

For temp. I use 99.5 and then lower it only to about 99 at hatch.I checked my thermometers and they are reading 2 degrees high but I've compensated for that yet they hatch on day 25-26.