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The guinea fowl has not yet become a completely common bird in private backyards, but the exotic appearance and African origin of the bird suggest that the guinea fowl needs some unusual, special food. In fact, in terms of diet, guinea fowl is no different from chicken. Food for guinea fowl, like food for chickens, should consist of cereals, animal and vegetable protein, minerals, vitamins and trace elements.
Since almost all the parameters for guinea fowl and chickens are the same, the owners do not worry about what to feed the guinea fowl and calmly feed them regular chicken feed. But in this case, it must be taken into account that it is better not to give guinea fowl food intended for broiler chickens. It will not harm them, but the birds will gain fat, which guinea fowl theoretically should not have.
The only difference between guinea fowl and chickens is the laying season. Chickens, especially egg-bearing breeds, can lay eggs all year round and their diet is almost the same throughout the year. In summer, chickens are given grass, and in winter, finely chopped succulent feed. In their homeland, guinea fowls feed on dry grain and insects in the summer, but in captivity, guinea fowls, like chickens, can be given grass in the summer and succulent food in the winter.
Guinea fowl lay eggs seasonally. As a rule, birds begin to lay their first eggs in late February.But in guinea fowl, the fertilization instinct becomes active from mid-March, when there is at least 14 hours of daylight and the air temperature is above 17°C, so the first eggs in guinea fowl are usually unfertilized.
The mechanism here is quite simple. Birds lay eggs in batches. Usually, each batch is “calculated” for a month. Fertilization of eggs occurs at the stage of formation of a future batch of eggs. That is, the February-March eggs of guinea fowl began to form in late January - early February, when the males were still inactive. The next batch, which the birds will begin to lay in April, will have already been fertilized by the guinea fowl. Therefore, you need to start collecting eggs for breeding in April, and feeding them in preparation for egg laying should start in February. Even better since the beginning of winter.
Experienced livestock and poultry farmers have a principle: if you don’t know what to do, do it as in nature. In nature, the guinea fowl lives in North Africa, where the growing season begins with the beginning of the rainy season. The rains begin in October and end in March-April. All winter, wild guinea fowl eat green grass and awakened snails, providing themselves with vitamins and reserves of calcium and animal protein for future egg laying. Moreover, most often the air temperature in winter is +10 during the day and +7 at night. Showers add coolness.
When keeping a guinea fowl in a poultry house, the bird's rhythm is disrupted due to artificial lighting and too high air temperature, so in guinea fowl the egg-laying cycle begins ahead of time, while guinea fowl are not so dependent on external conditions and have retained “wild” habits.
In winter, it is better to bring the guinea fowl's diet as close as possible to the diet of its wild ancestors.
Guinea fowl diet in winter
Feeding guinea fowl at home, of course, will differ from the “wild” version. In Russia in winter there is nowhere to get green grass and snails, so these ingredients in the diet of guinea fowl will have to be replaced with succulent feed, dairy products and meat waste.
How to replace grass
Instead of grass, guinea fowl will happily eat finely chopped fresh cabbage, carrots, and beets. You can give the birds vegetable scraps from the kitchen table. In addition to vegetables, birds should be given sprouted wheat and oats. These ingredients are especially important because cereal herbs and are the main food of wild birds.
In the homeland of guinea fowl, wild oats, bluegrass, wild oats and other grains grow. There is also millet, which also comes from Africa. Therefore, all this sprouted grain can and should be given to birds in the winter.
From “domestic products” you can give guinea fowl finely chopped pine needles, rich in vitamin C in winter.
In the spring, with the beginning of the growth of young needles, the concentration of essential oils, which are dangerous for animals, greatly increases in coniferous trees. Therefore, pine needles are given only in winter.
Sometimes you can come across such diet tables
In general, the diet is not bad if you know about the properties of pine needles and exclude them from the guinea fowl’s diet in time, replacing them with sprouted grains and the first spring greens.
There is no need to chop up grass for feed. It is enough to tie the plants in a broom and hang them within the reach of the birds. Then all that remains is to throw out the coarse, inedible stems.
Another undesirable element in the diet of guinea fowl: fish meal.It is undesirable only for those who will eat guinea fowl that have received this flour. But it is useful for the bird. Therefore, it can and should be given to laying hens.
Grain and feed
To provide guinea fowl with vegetable protein, legumes can be added to the specified grain, which contains little protein but a lot of carbohydrates. Birds are usually fed cheap soy, but if one is wary of genetically modified feed, soy can be replaced with peas, lentils or beans.
Before use, all concentrates, especially legumes and corn, are crushed in a grain crusher and mixed. Guinea fowl are given the same allowance as chickens. A laying hen weighing 1.5 kg requires 100 - 120 g of grain feed. Guinea fowl weigh more, and the allowance for these birds is increased in proportion to their weight. If guinea fowl broiler breed and weighs about 3 kg, then the bird should receive about 200 g of feed. Weight control is carried out tactilely. In case of obesity, the amount of grain feed is reduced without depriving the birds of green feed.
How to replace natural protein
In the conditions of central Russia, snails and locusts familiar to guinea fowl can be replaced with:
- meat and bone or fish meal;
- finely chopped meat scraps;
- fish offal;
- cottage cheese;
- fermented milk whey, which can be used instead of water when making wet mash.
Therefore, if you give guinea fowl milk feed in the summer, then it is with the expectation that the birds eat it immediately, without leaving it for several hours.
Fish meal or fish giblets are bad because the poultry meat acquires a distinct fishy smell.It is better not to give this feed to livestock intended for slaughter.
Mineral supplements and vitamins
Vitamins should normally be present in feed. There is usually no need to add anything special, especially if the birds receive factory-made feed for laying hens.
To provide guinea fowl with calcium, a container with shells is placed in the enclosure. You can mix feed chalk into the feed, but in small quantities, as the chalk can stick together into lumps and clog the bird’s intestines. Guinea fowl will eat as many shells as they need.
Guinea fowl are also given a trough with sand, from which the birds peck out pebbles and bathe.
Summer diet
In the summer, free-ranging guinea fowl can find their own animal proteins by eating insects and worms.
When keeping a guinea fowl in an enclosure, the bird does not have the opportunity to provide itself with animal feed, and it is difficult to manually collect natural food for it in the summer in Russia. Therefore, you will have to mix meat-and-bone meal or feed minced fish into the feed for guinea fowl.
Experienced poultry farmers provide poultry with fresh animal protein by specially breeding maggots. If neighbors are not inclined to write complaints, then you can use these tips:
- Pour oatmeal infusion onto a piece of turf. Birds will eat the oatmeal itself, and flies will lay eggs on the remaining mucus;
- Pour the remaining fish soup onto the same piece of turf. The maggots will start even faster.
Guinea fowl are fed 2-3 times a day. Concentrates are usually given in the morning and evening. During the day, the birds are fed grass and wet mash.
Raising guinea fowl chicks
In nature, guinea fowl are born during a period of drought, when the only food available is fallen cereal seeds, ants and those same small white snails. Guinea fowl are unable to catch flies and locusts in the first days of their lives.
The first day after hatching the guinea fowl does not eat. On the second day, the chicks can be offered starter feed for chicks or quails. You can make food for guinea fowl yourself. Unfortunately, there are very few videos on the Internet about guinea fowl in general, and about feeding chicks in particular.
The video indicates that quail food has been prepared in the feeder for the guinea fowl, mixed with yolk. This is a big mistake. A boiled egg has enough moisture to soak the feed. Soaked feed turns sour very quickly. As a result, the chicks get an upset stomach, and the owners are convinced that for several days the chicks should be given potassium permanganate and given finely chopped green onions “for disinfection.” Although there is nothing to disinfect in the intestines, you can easily burn the delicate intestinal mucosa of a newborn chick with hot onions. Chicks are born sterile. If the egg was infected while still in the bird or the chick caught the infection in the incubator, then potassium permanganate and onions will not help. A course of antibiotics is required as indicated.
Eggs and feed should be separated into different containers. Moreover, the egg also spoils quickly and you need to be able to remove it without affecting the feed. The guinea fowl will find and eat what it needs at the moment.
Grown-up guinea fowl, feed for quails plus grass with eggs:
As green food that can be mixed with eggs, it is better to take not green onions, but wheat, oats or barley sprouts specially grown at the time the chicks hatch.
Trying to feed a newborn guinea fowl by tapping the food with your finger is a pointless exercise, since on the first day the chick does not eat yet, and on the second, most likely, he will have time to find the feeder himself. In general, there is no need to feed the chicks. They need to be provided with constant and free access to food. A guinea fowl that refuses food most likely has a developmental pathology and will not survive even if it is force-fed.
An old recipe for food for chicks: boiled millet plus a boiled egg.
In general, feeding and caring for small guinea fowls is the same as for chickens. Week-old guinea fowl can be gradually transferred to food for adult birds. It is better to mix starter feed for chicks and feed for adult birds first, since the chicks may not understand that large granules are edible. While rummaging through the feed, the guinea fowl will gradually get used to eating large granules of “adult” food.
Experienced poultry farmers involved in breeding purebred birds claim that there is no more trouble with guinea fowl, but no less than with those breeds of chickens that lack the brooding instinct. Therefore, if a beginner is not afraid of the need to incubate guinea fowl eggs, he can safely get this original bird.
