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October/November 2003
 
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By Nancy Smith

Any bird with a call like "Buckwheat!" and a head like a helmet needs some redeeming quality. In the case of the guinea fowl, which have both the call (in this case, the hens say "Buckwheat!") and the oddly shaped, nearly bald noggin, their appetite for ticks may be their meal ticket in more than one way.

First introduced to the United States from their native Africa during pre-Civil War days, guineas have been kept on small farms and homesteads, usually mixed in with chickens and assorted other fowl, and admired mostly for their delicately speckled eggs and their "watch dog" instincts. They reliably sound their alarm call whenever hawks circle the chickens or rats infiltrate the poultry house to filch eggs, or when strangers drive up the lane.

Guinea Shelter

House your guineas in a stand-alone structure or in an area inside another building. The size will depend on how many guineas you need to house. Gardening with Guineas author Jeannette Ferguson says to allow 3 to 4 square feet per bird. Roosts should be the ladder-type, with perches of 2-by-2-inch wood with beveled edges (for comfortable gripping) cut into 4-foot lengths and set 1 foot apart.

Provide fresh water at all times. Although 90 percent of adult guineas' diets consist of free-range foods (tick, ticks, ticks!), you should supplement their foraging efforts with the following (kept inside their house to encourage their use of the structure). Offer free choice grit, oyster shells and an 18-percent-protein chicken layer ration (no commercial ration for guineas is sold). Ferguson places these food supplements in rabbit feeders hung on the wall to keep the birds from eating off the floor.

The ultimate treat for guineas, she says, is white millet, which should be used primarily to teach your guineas to come when they are called and to return to their indoor roosts (their instinct is to roost in trees) each evening, which protects them from nighttime predators.

First food for keets should be a high-protein turkey starter or starter/grower mix. Between 6 and 12 weeks of age, they should begin to eat feeds for more mature birds; any changes in feed should be gradual. Young or old, guineas do best when allowed to free-feed at all times.

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