The period of incubation of eggs by a guinea fowl
Guinea fowl is a poultry species that first appeared in Africa. These "royal birds" look like turkeys and domestic chickens. They are mainly bred for their soft, healthy meat and delicious eggs. By their nature, guinea fowls adapt well to any climatic changes, are unpretentious to keeping conditions and have excellent immunity to various diseases, so it is not so difficult to breed these birds. Before you start breeding these birds, you need to find out how many days the guinea fowl eggs hatch. This is necessary in order to create comfortable conditions for the laying hen and form the correct feed ration. Good and healthy nutrition is the key to the health of an adult guinea fowl and its guinea fowl.
How many days does the guinea fowl hatch eggs
Guinea fowl meat tastes very much like pheasant meat. It is soft, contains less water than chicken, and is rich in protein, hemoglobin and vitamin A.
Laying features
Guinea fowls mature late. Their full sexual maturity occurs at the age of seven or eight months. Then they begin to rush. But the time when guinea fowls sit on their eggs depends not only on age, but also on the conditions of detention. Under good conditions, chickens begin hatching at nine or eleven months of age.
It is important to know that males reach puberty later than females, therefore, if you buy caesars and guinea fowls of the same age, then the chicken will not be able to hatch the guinea fowls for the first few months. The eggs will be edible because the male will not be able to fertilize them.
If you want to start breeding them immediately after purchasing these poultry, it is better to select the flock so that the male is slightly older than the guinea fowls. However, there are methods of artificially accelerating the onset of puberty, which are often used on farms where chickens are raised. In this case, the female begins to incubate as early as six months.
Guinea fowls of different breeds are able to lay their own number of eggs, but the same for everyone is how many days the guinea fowl sits on the eggs. It is important to know that the duration of incubation of eggs affects their number. A healthy adult hen sits on eggs for 25 to 28 days. At the same time, the breaks between egg-laying are small.
If you keep the guinea fowl in a cage, then you can get much more products from them than with outdoor keeping. Due to the creation of artificial lighting, hens will be able to lay eggs much earlier than the due date, but this product will only be food. The appearance of chickens is possible in walking conditions.
Egg hatching time
Guinea fowl is capable of laying up to 150 eggs per year. And if we take into account the fact that the bird incubates them constantly with short interruptions, then the question arises: how many guinea fowls sit on the eggs?
As mentioned earlier, the female sits for up to 28 days. But there are ways in which a hen will produce more than one egg per day at home.To do this, you need to put the chicken in a cage with artificial lighting, which will create the feeling of a 16-hour day. Under these conditions, the guinea fowl will be able to carry 3 eggs every 2 days.
But you need to understand that the more eggs the laying hen brings, the more the body will be worn out. To maintain the vital energy and health of the bird, it is necessary to provide it with comfortable conditions for incubating eggs and proper nutrition with calcium content. The very first eggs that guinea fowls hatch are very small and are not suitable for offspring.
Factors influencing the laying and hatching process
How much guinea fowl eggs hatch depends on the breed of the bird and its physiological characteristics. Usually, the egg-laying process in these poultry is increasing. For several months, the guinea fowl carry testicles, and then stagnation sets in. At first, the number of eggs laid will reach 6 pieces, but over time this number will only grow.
If the climatic conditions are suitable for birds, then at the end of February they can begin to rush. The laying period will end in early March. The highest productivity is observed in May. Guinea fowls usually no longer hatch eggs from mid-autumn. However, if the laying hen is kept under controlled conditions, the laying period can be extended up to 9 months.
How the guinea fowl incubates the eggs affects their quantity and quality. But in addition to the conditions created for oviposition, genetic predisposition and the following parameters also matter:
- climate and weather;
- feeding conditions and quality of the feed ration;
- the presence of a sufficient amount of nutrients in feed and other food;
- the duration of the lighting of the room.
Guinea fowl does not always hatch 150 eggs per year. Depending on the conditions created for it, the amount of the product can either grow to 180 or decrease by several dozen. But there were cases when one bird brought 200 pieces annually.
Breeding methods for guinea fowl
Guinea fowl can be bred in two ways:
- Breeding chicks in an incubator makes it possible to obtain a large number of eggs.
- Breeding young offspring with the help of a brooding hen. In one season, the female will not produce many eggs, since she will not be interested in further egg-laying.
Breeding in an incubator
With this method, only externally ideal testicles are used: medium in size, oval in shape and with an even shell without the slightest cracks. To check if an egg is cracked or not, you need to knock one against the other. If something is cracked, you will hear a rattling sound. There is no need to be afraid to knock on eggs, they will not break, since their shells are strong. This allows eggs to be stored for much longer without losing their properties and without spoiling.
Before placing the testicles in the incubator, you need to check for blood clots. You can use an ovoscope for this. It is better to incubate guinea fowl eggs separately from chicken eggs. Since they are adapted to more difficult natural conditions, the brood hen incubates them mainly during periods of drought.
It is important that the incubator has a low humidity. This will prevent the contents of the egg from drying out, which is a problem, because even if the guinea fowl eggs are stored for more than 6 months, they do not deteriorate, but they dry out from the inside. This is due to the fact that the water inside the egg can come out through the thick shell and evaporate.
Caesarian embryos should be checked immediately after the third week of incubation. At this stage, you can see the chick itself through the ovoscope and understand whether it is alive or not. There is a chance that the chicks will be dead in most of the eggs.
After the caesarians hatch, they need to be placed in a brooder and begin to feed vigorously. The peculiarity of these chicks is that they can be fed with any kind of food: they do not require special nutrition.But it is important that the diet includes all the necessary vitamins and other nutrients that will help the chicken grow rapidly.
It is imperative to monitor the temperature in brooders. Immediately after the chicks are born, the temperature should be quite high, since at this point they will not have feathers yet and they may freeze. Keep small birds in brooders until they fledge, or navigate by the weather.
In brooders, it is recommended to use incandescent lamps instead of infrared lamps, since the latter heat only the place where the rays directly hit. The air in places that are not illuminated by this lamp will be cold, and chicks can catch cold, and incandescent lamps heat a larger radius of the space.
Incubation of eggs by a brood hen
For incubation of eggs, the female selects a quiet and cozy place. It is important to know that the eggs should never be touched, otherwise the guinea fowl will not incubate them, it will get scared and abandon its nest. Usually one bird brings up to 20 eggs, and then perches on them and begins to incubate.
When the guinea fowl sits on eggs, it should not be disturbed, therefore, poultry farmers recommend making nests indoors, this should help the bird find peace and a sense of security.
It is forbidden for strangers to enter there, since these birds are very shy, accept and are not afraid only of their owner. Guinea fowls will not hatch offspring in open places. To hatch successfully, they need peace and safety. However, during this period, the guinea fowl are not only fearful, but also aggressive.
In all guinea fowls, chicks do not appear at the same time. Even if the birds sit on the testicles at the same time, their hatching can occur on different days. It usually takes 2 days.
It is also interesting that chicks from one hen can hatch at different times. Moreover, only the newly born chick, having dried up, can begin to walk on its own, and the guinea fowl will either continue to incubate the remaining eggs, or will abandon the nest and go to nurse the newly hatched guinea fowls.