Incubating guinea egg (questions)

[The Ranch Girl]

Hi everyone I just started incubating turkey, chicken, and guinea eggs and have some questions about it. So the story is, is that last yr we bought 16 guinea meets and raised them. Of course some died in the process so we had about 13 left. We then moved them down to the coop. Well long story short our blue heeler and her new pups started killing them and eating them and soon we were down to about 8-7 so of course we sold her. Then later on they kept disappearing which we led back to our other dog who we penned up. So we were down to two. Later on in the yr we figured out the last two were females bc we kept getting eggs from them. Then of course one of them disappeared and the other had a hip injury but miraculously survived so of course all of last yr and these past few months of 2023 we've had her. Our lucky little surviver but then the strangest thing happened last week....
We had a guinea out if the blue show up and go into our coop with her!! And we had ordered all of our guineas with their pin yin wing removed and this one had its wings and we have no wild guineas around! So we cracked her eggs opened and they looked fertilized to us with the white ring around the small white dot. So we incubated eggs thinking that the one that showed up was a male. I've seen signs of life in the other eggs but not the guinea and we've been incubating for 4 days so my question is how can we be sure they are fertilized? And that the one that showed up is a male? Also when do I get rid of the eggs in the incubated be sure I don't want to incubate rotten eggs.
Thank you!

 

[R2elk]

Hi everyone I just started incubating turkey, chicken, and guinea eggs and have some questions about it. So the story is, is that last yr we bought 16 guinea meets and raised them. Of course some died in the process so we had about 13 left. We then moved them down to the coop. Well long story short our blue heeler and her new pups started killing them and eating them and soon we were down to about 8-7 so of course we sold her. Then later on they kept disappearing which we led back to our other dog who we penned up. So we were down to two. Later on in the yr we figured out the last two were females bc we kept getting eggs from them. Then of course one of them disappeared and the other had a hip injury but miraculously survived so of course all of last yr and these past few months of 2023 we've had her. Our lucky little surviver but then the strangest thing happened last week....
We had a guinea out if the blue show up and go into our coop with her!! And we had ordered all of our guineas with their pin yin wing removed and this one had its wings and we have no wild guineas around! So we cracked her eggs opened and they looked fertilized to us with the white ring around the small white dot. So we incubated eggs thinking that the one that showed up was a male. I've seen signs of life in the other eggs but not the guinea and we've been incubating for 4 days so my question is how can we be sure they are fertilized? And that the one that showed up is a male? Also when do I get rid of the eggs in the incubated be sure I don't want to incubate rotten eggs.
Thank you!

The guinea that showed up is most likely a male that lost his mate on her hidden nest to a predator.

I hatch guinea eggs the same way I hatch chicken or turkey eggs. The hatch date will be 26 to 28 days from when you start incubating them.

I would not be concerned about not being able to see development at 4 days. Guinea eggs are harder to see into than chicken eggs. They take longer to incubate than chicken eggs. I wouldn't bother to candle the guinea eggs until 14 days.

I do not recommend brooding guinea keets with any other chicks or poults. The imprinting that occurs causes the guineas to lose the ability to understand that the other poultry are not guineas. Later on that inability can cause great stress to your other poultry.

 

[The Ranch Girl]

The guinea that showed up is most likely a male that lost his mate on her hidden nest to a predator.

I hatch guinea eggs the same way I hatch chicken or turkey eggs. The hatch date will be 26 to 28 days from when you start incubating them.

I would not be concerned about not being able to see development at 4 days. Guinea eggs are harder to see into than chicken eggs. They take longer to incubate than chicken eggs. I wouldn't bother to candle the guinea eggs until 14 days.

I do not recommend brooding guinea keets with any other chicks or poults. The imprinting that occurs causes the guineas to lose the ability to understand that the other poultry are not guineas. Later on that inability can cause great stress to your other poultry.

Thank you so much! I didn't know that about mixing other chicks or poults, may I ask why it would cause stress to the other birds? Just out of curiousity.

 

[R2elk]

Thank you so much! I didn't know that about mixing other chicks or poults, may I ask why it would cause stress to the other birds? Just out of curiosity.

Guineas have naturally different instinctive behaviors that other poultry do not understand. It gets worse during breeding season.

The other poultry do not understand the races, the chases, the attacks from behind with the feather pulling or breaking. They do not understand how to show show submission in "guinea" which makes the attacks get worse. The guineas can and do attack en masse.

It may have been funny to watch seeing a guinea latched onto a turkey wing feather and being dragged on a "sleigh ride". The turkey didn't appreciate it and would have immediately killed the guinea if he could have caught it. I know plenty of people that had tailless roosters from the feather pulling and people that have had bloodied or killed chickens from guinea attacks.

I brood, raise and house my guineas separately from my other poultry. When they are all out free ranging in the same area the guineas keep to themselves as do the chickens and turkeys.

 

[The Ranch Girl]

Guineas have naturally different instinctive behaviors that other poultry do not understand. It gets worse during breeding season.

The other poultry do not understand the races, the chases, the attacks from behind with the feather pulling or breaking. They do not understand how to show show submission in "guinea" which makes the attacks get worse. The guineas can and do attack en masse.

It may have been funny to watch seeing a guinea latched onto a turkey wing feather and being dragged on a "sleigh ride". The turkey didn't appreciate it and would have immediately killed the guinea if he could have caught it. I know plenty of people that had tailless roosters from the feather pulling and people that have had bloodied or killed chickens from guinea attacks.

I brood, raise and house my guineas separately from my other poultry. When they are all out free ranging in the same area the guineas keep to themselves as do the chickens and turkeys.

Oh ok thankyou so much I totally understand and will keep them separate. I really appreciate the help and love learning something new!