guinea eggs close...unsure of day, leave em in the turner or take em out?

[ohgoodnessguineas]

one of our guinea hens was scared off her nest by a wild animal or dog. she had put herself in a pretty nice hiding spot, so we decided to let her stay there instead of taking her eggs from her, but we also aren't entirely certain of the exact day she started full incubation. she's alive, but she abandoned the nest, so we put them in an incubator.

under a candler, all of them have slanted air cells, all of them show movement, some seem more developed than others (it did take us a day to realize that she wasn't on the nest thanks to its location and the fact that we only give them grain before they coop up at night). the highest estimate i could put these guys at would be day 25, lowest would be day 22, but i'm leaning toward higher. *for quick reference, guineas are 26-28 days.

so i'm in a pickle here. would it be better to keep them turning for a day or two, or go ahead and lock them down? this is an even bigger question mark to me, considering guineas have a bigger window of hatch time, these particular guys have an unsure start date, and the candling yielded such different-looking embryos. i just wanna do what's best for the little guys. please let me know what you guys think. thanks so much.

 

[R2elk]

one of our guinea hens was scared off her nest by a wild animal or dog. she had put herself in a pretty nice hiding spot, so we decided to let her stay there instead of taking her eggs from her, but we also aren't entirely certain of the exact day she started full incubation. she's alive, but she abandoned the nest, so we put them in an incubator.

under a candler, all of them have slanted air cells, all of them show movement, some seem more developed than others (it did take us a day to realize that she wasn't on the nest thanks to its location and the fact that we only give them grain before they coop up at night). the highest estimate i could put these guys at would be day 25, lowest would be day 22, but i'm leaning toward higher. *for quick reference, guineas are 26-28 days.

so i'm in a pickle here. would it be better to keep them turning for a day or two, or go ahead and lock them down? this is an even bigger question mark to me, considering guineas have a bigger window of hatch time, these particular guys have an unsure start date, and the candling yielded such different-looking embryos. i just wanna do what's best for the little guys. please let me know what you guys think. thanks so much.

I know one person who only moved her guinea eggs into her hatcher when they had already internally pipped. If you are an experienced candler, that is the method that I would suggest.

I have had keets hatch while the turner in my cabinet incubator was still on with no issues.

If you just want to move them all to lockdown at the same time, that is also acceptable. Research has shown that it is far more important to turn the eggs very early during incubation than it is towards the end. At least one person who had started both guinea and chicken eggs at the same time put all the eggs into lockdown on day 18 and had both a successful chicks and keets hatch even though the guinea eggs went without turning for the last 10 days.

 

[ohgoodnessguineas]

I know one person who only moved her guinea eggs into her hatcher when they had already internally pipped. If you are an experienced candler, that is the method that I would suggest.

I have had keets hatch while the turner in my cabinet incubator was still on with no issues.

If you just want to move them all to lockdown at the same time, that is also acceptable. Research has shown that it is far more important to turn the eggs very early during incubation than it is towards the end. At least one person who had started both guinea and chicken eggs at the same time put all the eggs into lockdown on day 18 and had both a successful chicks and keets hatch even though the guinea eggs went without turning for the last 10 days.

thank you so much for this great response!!