Guinea fowl, with their unique personalities and habits, can be a valuable addition to any homestead or farm. While they are not as domesticated as chickens, their independent nature and pest-control abilities make them a worthwhile endeavor. To ensure their health, productivity, and overall well-being, it's crucial to understand their dietary needs and nutritional requirements.
Guinea Fowl: An Overview
Guinea fowl are Galliformes, a group including all chicken-like birds. The Pearl (or Helmeted Pearl) guineas being the most known and domesticated. Other varieties include the White, Royal Purple, and Lavender guinea fowl.
Pros of Keeping Guinea Fowl
- Excellent free-rangers
- Act as watchdogs, warning of strangers or predators
- Effective bug and pest control, including small snakes and rodents
- Cost-effective, obtaining 90% of their food from free-ranging
- Do not disturb garden beds like chickens
- Tolerant of warmer climates
- Long lifespan of 10-15 years
Cons of Keeping Guinea Fowl
- Natural-born scratchers
- Very loud, potentially disturbing neighbors
- Not suitable for small backyards or confinement
Nutritional Needs of Guinea Fowl
Guinea fowl are omnivorous birds that require a balanced diet encompassing protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Protein is especially important for growth, particularly during the keet (baby guinea) stage. Guinea fowl require at least 0.25 - 0.5 lbs of food a day, whether from bird feed and forage or only free-ranging. Guinea fowl need more protein than chickens, so that's why they forage so heavily for bugs, slugs, worms, and small rodents.
Keet Diet
Keets need much more protein than baby chicks. You should start them on a 28 % game-bird/turkey ration (they prefer crumbles) and then change to an 18 % feed for weeks 5 - 8. After week 8, you will continue with a 16 % layer mash. Only give them lukewarm water as cold water can cause a life-threatening chill. You should also keep their bedding clean and dry.
High-Protein Starter Feed: Provide keets with a high-protein starter feed designed for game birds or turkeys to support rapid growth and strong bone and feather development. A 24% to 26% protein ration is ideal.
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
Adult Guinea Fowl Diet
Foraging: Guinea fowl are excellent foragers, obtaining a significant portion of their diet from the environment. They consume insects, seeds, grasses, and weeds, reducing feed costs and controlling pests.
Supplemental Feeding: Supplement their natural diet with grains like millet, maize, and wheat, along with protein-rich treats such as mealworms or boiled eggs.
Commercial Poultry Feed: If free-ranging is not possible or during winter, supplement with commercial poultry feed, ensuring it is unmedicated and has a higher protein content. A 16% to 17% protein layer feed provides the right amount of vitamins and trace minerals. Guineas don’t tend to eat layer feed in pellet form, so choose layer mash feed or layer crumble feed instead.
Grit and Oyster Shells: Provide grit for better digestion and oyster shells for added calcium, especially if they cannot free-range.
Feeding Practices
Seasonal Adjustments: Adjust feeding practices based on the seasons to meet changing nutritional needs. Increase supplemental feed during winter or dry seasons when foraging options are limited.
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Avoid Overfeeding: Provide just enough feed to complement their foraging, preventing unnecessary costs and health issues like obesity.
Maintain Cleanliness: Use feeders that minimize spillage and keep feeding and watering areas clean to prevent disease and contamination.
What Guinea Fowl Eat
Guinea fowl are omnivores, meaning they eat both plant and animal matter. Their diet includes:
- Insects: Guineas eat a variety of insects, including grasshoppers, crickets, ticks, cockroaches, beetles, caterpillars, and ants. They spend hours hunting for termites.
- Seeds and Grains: They consume virtually any available seeds, including millet, sorghum, rice, and wheat.
- Fruits and Vegetables: Guineas enjoy fruits such as figs, grapes, berries, bananas, apples, strawberries, pears, and watermelons, as well as greens like lettuce, spinach, and kale.
- Other: They also eat slugs, worms, small rodents, vegetation, and dandelions.
What to Avoid Feeding Guinea Fowl
- Bread and low-value foods
- Avocados, chocolate, and onions (harmful to birds)
- Moldy or spoiled food
- Nuts or seeds treated with pesticides
Guinea Fowl in Captivity
When raising guinea fowl in a confined environment, it is necessary to pay more attention to their diet since they'll rely on regular feed more than forage for their daily nutrition. Extra protein supplements are also beneficial since guineas thrive on a high-protein diet. If given the chance, guineas will forage for most of their own diet. They instinctively know what foods to eat in order to meet their daily nutritional needs. It's always a good idea to supply your guineas with a balanced feed if they can’t forage for all of the nutrients they need.
Water
Access to clean, fresh water is crucial for guinea fowl at all stages of life.
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Health and Wellness
Guinea fowl are naturally more disease resistant than chickens. They have a hardy constitution and are resilient from a life of constant foraging and living outdoors. Environments that are especially damp and warm can harbor parasites and disease-causing microbes. If your guineas will be foraging in high-exposure areas, consider getting them vaccinated.
Common vaccines for guinea fowl and other poultry include vaccines for viral infections, coccidiosis, and Marek’s disease.
Another good health preventative measure to take is to set up a deworming schedule to control internal parasites. A life of foraging can increase the risk of guineas consuming host insects that spread internal parasite eggs. Some internal parasites that can infect guineas include roundworms, hookworms, tapeworms, and cecal worms. Giving your guineas a dewormer in the spring and fall can help keep internal parasites under control.
You should also focus on controlling external parasites. External parasites that infect guineas include mites and lice. The best way to control external parasites on guineas is to make sure they have access to a dust bath. Dust bathing will suffocate external parasites and is an instinctual activity for guineas.
Regularly observe your guinea fowl and practice good biosecurity measures. Proper cleaning and sanitation practices can help prevent disease and parasites in your guinea flock. You should also watch for behaviors that could indicate that a guinea is feeling ill. If you notice that a guinea fowl is acting differently or sickly, quarantine the sick guinea so you can diagnose and treat the condition.
Guinea Fowl Eggs
Guinea fowl only lay eggs between March - October, depending on your location. Hens will lay on average around 100 eggs per season. Their eggs are light brown, speckled, smaller than chicken eggs, and very hard-shelled.
Egg Quality
Guinea eggs are smaller than a traditional chicken egg and they have extremely tough shells. They have a more triangular shape with a distinct pointy tip and blunt end. Guinea eggs are usually light brown to cream in color, with some eggs being lightly speckled in color. The yolk of a guinea egg is proportionately larger than the egg yolk of a chicken egg. However, since the eggs are smaller than a chicken egg, it takes about 3 guinea eggs to equal 2 standard size chicken eggs.
Guinea Fowl vs. Chickens
Guinea fowl are not as domesticated as chickens. Their survival instincts are very strong and they are much more independent than chickens. Guinea fowl are not known to be friendly, docile, or affectionate like some chicken breeds. They prefer to be left to their own devices with little intervention from their caretakers. Both male and female guinea fowl are very vocal. Since guinea fowl originated from Africa, they tend to be more heat tolerant than chickens but not as cold hardy.
Guinea Fowl Meat
Guinea fowl meat is described by a darker color and a unique flavor. It has a proper texture that is attributed to its white muscle fibers, which correspond in quantity to the muscles of chickens but in size to those of geese (Bernacki et al., 2012a). Guinea fowls are characterized by relatively higher slaughter performance (Ebegbulem and Asuquo, 2018) good ratios of valuable parts in the carcass as well as satisfactory sensory properties of meat (Kyere et al., 2020).
Nutrition Facts of Guinea Fowl Meat (per 100g)
- Calories: Not specified in provided text
- Fat: 3g
- Carbohydrates: 0g
- Protein: 25g
- Sodium: 74mg
Health Benefits of Guinea Fowl Meat
- High in protein
- Rich in vitamins and minerals (Vitamin B6, B12, zinc, selenium)
- Lower in fat compared to some other poultry
- Contains healthy fats
Potential Health Risks
- High fat content in the skin
- Risk of bacterial contamination (Salmonella, Campylobacter)
- High sodium content in prepared products
- Potential for allergic reactions