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How to hatch guinea keets

Guinea fowl, you either love them or hate them!
I happen to love them and have been raising
guineas since 2009. I started hatching guinea
keets as soon as my guinea hens started laying
eggs. I also started selling keets that first spring
since everyone wanted my newly hatched keets!
Thankfully it's easy to incubate guinea eggs so I
hatched myself more, and have been hatching
them every year since.
The first time I incubated Guinea fowl eggs I just
popped the eggs in my incubator along with
chicken eggs and used all the same settings as I
do for chicks. It sorta worked, actually.

Other than the longer incubation period, guinea

hen eggs and chicken eggs are quite similar in
incubation procedure. With a few tweaks though,
I started to get a better hatch rate and I was
hooked on hatching my own guinea keets.

Of course the easiest method is always to have a

hen hatch the eggs out. If you have a broody
hen that is. Even though many guinea hens are
excellent at hatching their own eggs, they aren't
the best mothers at all. I'm pretty sure they lose
more keets than they manage to raise! My
solution is to give the guinea eggs to a chicken to
hatch and raise.

If you don't have a broody hen though, you'll

have to use an incubator.

Before we get started...if you're not real familiar

with hatching chicks or keets some of the terms I
use can be confusing. Here is a list of Egg
incubation terminology and their definitions to
help you out.
How to incubate guinea fowl eggs

Chose clean, fertilized eggs that are less than 10

days old to incubate. Do not wash the eggs.
Washing eggs removes the 'bloom' which is a
natural, protective coating. Do not incubate
cracked, damaged or misshapen eggs. Here's
more information on how to handle hatching
eggs before incubation.
Guinea fowl are a ground nesting bird that like to
hide their nests and many times the eggs seem
particularly dirty (compared to chicken eggs)
Chose the cleanest eggs you can, or lightly buff
off dirt with a dry cloth.

Place your incubator in a draft free room out of

direct sunlight. Turn your incubator on (and the
egg turner if it has separate controls) 24-48
hours before setting eggs. Check the
temperature several times and make sure it
stays steady for at least 12 hours before setting
eggs. The incubator should be kept at 99-
99.5°F for forced air and 101-102°F for a still air
incubator.

The temperature inside your incubator will drop

when you first put the new eggs in it. This is
normal. Don't touch the controls, it will come
back to the correct temperature as soon as the
eggs warm up.

Keep the humidity in the incubator between 45-55% for the

first 25 days. If your incubator does not have an
egg turner, turn the eggs 3-5 times a day.

I like to candle guinea eggs after 10 days of

incubation, though you can often see
development after just 5 days. Using a strong
flashlight or a candling light, look inside the egg.
It helps if you're in a dark room. You should see
a darkened blob with what looks like a red spider
inside. It might also have a black spot in it.

Dispose of any eggs that are not developing.

Return the developing eggs to the incubator. Try
to move quickly so the eggs do not get too cold.

Removing eggs that have stopped developing is

important during incubation and right before
lockdown. When an egg stops developing it starts
to decompose. This can cause pressure to build
up and the eggshell can pop open. If an egg
breaks open inside your incubator it could ruin
the rest of the hatch.

You want to remove these before they have a

chance to pop as they smell really bad and are
hard to clean up.

How to hatch guinea keets

On day 25 stop turning the eggs. If you have a
removable turner, take it out. Once you remove
the turner make sure the temperature in the
incubator doesn't drop, since egg turners
sometimes have a motor that creates heat and
adds to the incubators temperature.

Make sure you do this by day 25 as keets seem

to hatch early for many breeders, and you don't
want to have problems with one getting stuck in
the turner or falling out of the egg trays! You will
have to carefully adjust the incubator
temperature if it gets too low. If your eggs are in
suspended turning trays (like in a cabinet
incubator) move them to the hatching area.
Candle the eggs one last time and remove ones
that have quit developing.

It's especially crucial at the end stage of

incubation to remove bad eggs since the keets
will be hatching soon and the will start running
around inside the incubator. This movement can
trigger a bad egg to pop.

Raise the humidity in the incubator to 65%

by adding water to the water reservoir. If you
can’t get the humidity high enough with the
water reservoir alone, you can also add a piece
of wet sponge. You'll probably have to add water
during the days of lock down so try to position
the sponge to make it easy.

I like to put a piece of non-slip material in the

bottom of the hatcher (under the eggs) so the
keets can get a good grip with their little feet. It
helps to prevent spraddle leg. Rubber shelf liner
works great for this, or a thick washcloth.

From day 25 till about day 31 is considered "lock

down". This is the crucial time while the keets
are hatching. If you open the incubator during
this time it can let the humidity out drying the
membrane of the hatching keets. Once the
membrane dries, the keets are unable to move
and can get stuck in their shells. This is called
shrink wrapped.

The guinea egg hatching process starts around

day 25 as the keet gets ready to hatch.
Somewhere around day 28, the keet will peck a
hole in the egg with the little egg tooth on his
beak. This is called pipping. Sometimes you will
hear peeping even before they pip through the
shell! After they pip through the shell, they will
slowly peck their way around the shell breaking
through it all the way around. This is called
zipping. They will then push the top off the egg
and pop out.

There really is no 'typical' hatch. Sometimes a

keet will pip and zip in an hour. Others will pip
then rest a few hours before they start zipping.
Others will partially zip then rest. A keet can take
up to 24 hours to hatch but I find that keets pop
out of their eggs a whole lot faster than chicks
do!

Leave newly hatched keets in the incubator until

they're completely dry and fluffy. They can be
moved to the brooder after 24 hours. Related
reading: How to raise guinea keets.

You'll need to clean your incubator after each

hatch. I have instructions for cleaning
Styrofoam and plastic incubators. An incubator
free of bacteria and debris gets a much better
hatch rate and they're much easier to clean right
after the hatch is complete.

Want to know more about guinea fowl? Check

out my collection of guinea articles at: Guinea
Fowl 101.

~L

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