Guinea Fowl

Guinea Fowl

HISTORY
The Guinea fowl belong to the Numida family – they are related to pheasants, turkeys and other game fowl. There is some evidence to suggest that Guinea fowl were known as far back as ancient Greece around the 5th century BC. The Romans brought them back from their African campaigns and tried to domesticate them. They were semi-successful in this venture, raising them on farms. Romans were able to raise them but never really tame them. The home of the Guinea fowl is Africa where they run wild in large flocks.

Some were taken to Jamaica about 200 years ago, during the slave trading era and they became part of the landscape. To this day you can find Guineas running wild in Jamaica! Guineas were first introduced to Europe back in the 1400’s and made their way to America with the early settlers and slaver ships. In the US only the helmeted variety is recognized and domesticated.

Why Guineas?

• A natural alarm system and guardian bird – sounding the alarm whenever anything unusual occurs.
• Consume large amounts of insects. Natural Lyme disease prevention!
• Are easy and inexpensive to raise, resistant to many diseases.
• Fend for themselves, living on insects, seeds, and grasses. Lower feed costs. Still need a balanced diet.
• Because guineas feed on ticks/bugs as a food source, it’s a more natural (greener) way to control the insect pest population, allowing reduced use of chemicals and pesticides. Guineas will kill rats, mice and snakes.
• Eggs – did you know their eggs have more protein than chicken eggs? 15 g of protein compared to 6g of protein. Great for a keto diet!
• They are very tasty! Make a great table bird.

These are colors we have or do carry here at the farm:

Feed Recommendations: guineas are considered a gamebird and need higher protein when developing. We recommend Sugar Feather Farm gamebird starter,  when they are keets, Sugar Feather Farm gamebird grower when they are growing, and when the hit maturation you can switch to our adult feed.

We also highly recommend purchasing the oil of oregano – it helps with overall gut health and bird health.

We highly recommend using the Oil of Oregano in their water daily as a supplement to aid with digestion and overall health.

Tips and Tricks
Guineas are highly social with their own kind; where one goes, they all go. If one gets lost it will call out until the flock comes to find it.
They can co-exist with other species such as chickens, ducks, etc but typically like to be the “boss”, more so the males so separation might be necessary as they mature. Keets can be raised with other baby fowl but once they mature a bit and get real “squirrely” then you will need then to be in their own space. They love roosting in trees or other high places, in your coop place your roosts high. Guinea need housing to go into, please don’t have them if you don’t have housing they can wander during the day but need shelter in inclement weather and in the evenings. If left out at night they have a very high chance of getting killed by aerial predators.

Our trick to entice them into the coop each evening is a call we use every day (trained since the keet stage) and millet. Try to do this before dark they seem to dislike entering a dark place, so a low output light bulb should be kept on until they are all settled in. If you do decide to keep your guineas in confinement, they need 2-3 square foot space per bird. Any less and they are likely to become stressed, these are semi-wild fowl and do not generally thrive in confinement. These birds are monogamous and mate for life in the wild. A good ratio of male to female is often 1:5 and this seems to generally work well. They are loud, please remember this for your neighbors. Check local zoning laws.