Hatching Guinea Eggs

[Critterlover]

Hi! I haven't been here in years! Wow it's changed.

Anyway, I am interested in getting some guineas for the ticks here. We have chickens, but they don't range far enough. We have a disease here carried by ticks that is deadly to cats, and we've had 4 die, even with frontline it can kill them. Also we have cows and a couple of horses, living in the Ozarks it's tick central. Anyway, I'm told the guineas will range well and get the ticks the chickens don't get to. I thought it might be a good project for my little sister (13) to get some eggs and let her hatch and raise them. We just have a cheap still air Styrofoam incubater, which has worked well for chickens and turkeys in the past. I'm wondering how hard it is to incubate these. I've had mandarins before and they are hard to hatch, they would never hatch in an incubator like this. I used to have a brinsea for them. Are guineas about like chickens and turkeys to hatch? I read they take 28 days, to incubate at 99.5, and then lower by one degree the last 3 days. Also, the article says to fill the wells, but we have high humidity here, with chickens I never used any water in the wells.

[Evy]

They're not difficult to hatch but don't depend on Guineas for total tick control. Yes, they'll eat them, but the idea that they'll rid your property of them is a myth.

[Critterlover]

I wondered if you were still around here Evy! You might remember me. :) I think the first time I was here was nearly 10 years ago now.

Anyway, our chickens have virtually eliminated them from our yard and surrounding field- pretty much everywhere within sight of their coop. We tick check the cats often because of the cytaux the ticks can carry, it takes like 12 hours to transmit from the tick to the cat. The cats that stay in the yard we rarely find one, like two a month, and they have no tick protection on. So I'm hoping the guineas will do the same, but in a bigger area. If not we'll eat them. I kind of find their noises annoying, but I'm told they tend to wander and not stay around all the time.

Before we had chickens, we had swarms of ticks, one summer that I could literally put one foot off the porch, bring it back and it have seed ticks on it. The yard was covered in them, didn't help it was mowed and such and we only had I think one dog and one cat. We put down chemicals, then got smart and got the chickens. Ticks are just very bad here. The chickens got rid of them 99% which is awesome. The eggs don't hurt either. :)

Glad to hear they aren't hard to hatch, hopefully it will be a fun project for Amy.

[Evy]

I wondered if you were still around here Evy! You might remember me. :) I think the first time I was here was nearly 10 years ago now.

Anyway, our chickens have virtually eliminated them from our yard and surrounding field- pretty much everywhere within sight of their coop. We tick check the cats often because of the cytaux the ticks can carry, it takes like 12 hours to transmit from the tick to the cat. The cats that stay in the yard we rarely find one, like two a month, and they have no tick protection on. So I'm hoping the guineas will do the same, but in a bigger area. If not we'll eat them. I kind of find their noises annoying, but I'm told they tend to wander and not stay around all the time.

Before we had chickens, we had swarms of ticks, one summer that I could literally put one foot off the porch, bring it back and it have seed ticks on it. The yard was covered in them, didn't help it was mowed and such and we only had I think one dog and one cat. We put down chemicals, then got smart and got the chickens. Ticks are just very bad here. The chickens got rid of them 99% which is awesome. The eggs don't hurt either. :)

Glad to hear they aren't hard to hatch, hopefully it will be a fun project for Amy.

Yep, it has been a while & a few of us are still around.
Glad the chickens are doing a good job for you. Won't hurt to have the Guineas helping, too.

[robin416]

I have a flock of Guineas here. I would never be without them because they have done a great job at dropping the tick population. But if you're wanting them to work on the tick population away from the house and yard you probably need to have their coop out in those fields.

My guinea coop is about 200 feet from the house. Their predominate range is 400 feet around the house. They do go off to the outer fields but not much.

[Critterlover]

Now, do I need to have the temp at 99.5 in the still air or not? I always put the thermometer at the level of the top of the eggs. It's just been a while since I've incubated eggs.

[Leo]

Now, do I need to have the temp at 99.5 in the still air or not? I always put the thermometer at the level of the top of the eggs. It's just been a while since I've incubated eggs.

I was thinking the recommended temperature in a still air was 102 degrees at the top of the egg. This is supposed to make it 99.5 inside the egg.

[robin416]

101 for a still air. And 28 days to hatch.

[bargain]

With still air, I recommend closer to 100 temperature but increase that humidity all you can. I spray our guinea eggs before putting them in for the 25 days and then regularly throughout with warm water. You can also roll up a damp towel for this especially helpful in the last 3 days.

Our guineas do control our ticks - haven't had one all summer but we do have about 30 guineas and we also sell guinea eggs if anyone needs one.

Thanks and have a blessed day.