Farming Friends

I currently have 28 adult guinea fowl that enjoy free ranging around the farm during the day. They eat a diet of grains and the daily access to the farm’s grassy pastures produces eggs with a deep yellow yolk. These eggs have a thicker shell than ordinary eggs which protects the rich and flavoursome yolk. The Hugo House guinea fowl eggs are great boiled, fried, scrambled or poached and are ideal for use in baking.

Of the 28 quinea fowl, I have reared 25 of them from hatch. I have also got another 11 guinea fowl keets that are now 5 weeks old.

I decided to market the guinea fowl eggs as a speciality egg and they are now in some shops in the local area and are beginning to sell well.

I am afraid that the guinea fowl need to be trained not to go on or near the road. The guinea fowl can be trained but it may take some time to break the habit as guinea fowl are creatures of routine and tend to follow set routes around the garden each day.
When you see the guinea fowl ranging near the road, it is best to go out and steer them back into your garden. Long sticks for driving the guinea fowl into a certain area can be helpful, but a word of warning don’t wave the sticks too close to the guinea fowl as this will frighten them and send them flying into the trees.

Obviously going out each time the guinea fowl go near the road will be time consuming, so I would try enticing the guinea fowl back into the area that you want them to range in, with some millet. Jeannette Ferguson’s book Gardening with Guineas suggests that if you sprinkle the millet near a flower bed then the guinea fowl will eat the millet and hopefully notice all the bugs in the flower bed that they enjoy eating.
I am sorry that I don’t have a quick fix to stopping your guinea fowl from straying onto the road but hopefully with some training your guinea fowl will learn to stay within the area you train them to range in, thus keeping them safe and all the bugs and pests that eat your flowers will be eaten by the guinea fowl. It sounds like a win, win situation!

Click on the image below to visit Amazon.co.uk to find out more about this book or visit one of the Farming Friends Bookshops.

Well my guinea fowl keets are now four weeks old (in the picture they are 1 week old). Time flies by. The keets are growing well. I have now taken to switching the lamp off during the day. Their feathers have really developed and they are attempting to fly.

Now that the guinea fowl are four weeks old and are growing, the space in the hut is reducing per bird and as the floor litter builds up with more droppings it is even more important to have good hygiene. At this stage it is important to regularly clean the hut out and change the litter so the litter doesn’t get too soiled or damp as this can harbour disease.

Once the guinea fowl keets no longer need the lamp on, I intend to transfer the keets to the poultry barn. On transfer I intend to keep them in the barn within a run so that they can get used to their new environment and the other poultry and vice versa before they are released to free range.

I was sorry to hear that one of my reader’s guinea fowl, which they keep as a pet, has suddenly turned violent.

Hello

I have a question about my guinea fowl. I don’t know if it is a male or female. I have had it for a year now and it has been a fun family pet. Yesterday it started to violently attack me and it stabbed my leg with its claw and now we can’t go outside without protection. What is wrong with my guinnea? I was told to put it to sleep but we don’t want to do that if we don’t have to. Please get back to me as soon as you can. Thankyou for your time. charity

Hi Charity,
I am sorry to hear that your guinea fowl has suddenly become violent.

There are a number of ways to tell if a guinea fowl is male or female.

If you have experience of guinea fowl showing violent behaviour and can offer advice to Charity, then please leave a comment, thanks.

Sallyanne bought some hatching eggs and day old guinea fowl keets from farmingfriends and I am delighted that Sallyanne is keeping me informed of the keets progress. 

Dear Sara,

Thought you might like to see the photos of the Keets first day out and about in the garden (on Friday).  They are having such a lovely time and I think when the older keets are allowed to get near them! (Mumsie silkie is a bit protective and keeps chasing them off) they will all get on famously. Best wishes Sallyanne

I have received an email from Ruth who has a sick guinea fowl.

We are raising guineas for the first time. Every condition seems to be by the book. However, one of our guineas seems to be dizzy - unable to walk without falling over. It is just laying there. We can’t get it to drink. We don’t know what to do - can anyone tell us what we can do? We did separate the sick one from the rest. Thanks for any help. Ruth

I sent this reply.

Hi Ruth,
I am so sorry to hear about your guinea. You didn’t say what age your guinea fowl is as different illnesses can affect birds at different ages.
I too have found it very difficult when I have a sick guinea fowl because many of the symptoms are described in a number of illnesses.
What you are describing could be coccidiosis but I am not a vet and it is difficult to tell. I recently had some poorly quail and I phoned the vet who was sure it would be coccidiosis but when we sent in a quail that had died it turned out to be trichomonasis. if you are prepared to spend money on a vet bill then you could get your vet to look at the bird or if the bird does die then you could have a post mortem done s that you know what the disease was and can treat the others.
I am sorry that my advice is not very positive.
I hope that your guinea fowl does pull through. You could try giving the sick guinea fowl some yoghurt mixed with chick crumbs or you could try to use a syringe to get water into the guinea fowl.
I would also thoroughly clean out the guinea fowl accomodation so that if the illness is in the environment then the chances of the others getting it are minimised. I would also thoroughly disinfect the water and feed containers and provide the others with fresh water and feed as regularly as possible. It is also important to try to prevent the feed from going on the floor and the guinea fowl from eating it off the floor as this can lead to illness as the birds can also eat faeces as well as the food. I am sure that you know all this.
I will keep my fingers crossed for your guinea fowl. Let me know how you get on.
Kind regards
Sara @ farmingfriends

If anyone has any advice for Ruth about sick guinea fowl, then please leave a comment, thanks.

I am often asked advice about guinea fowl sitting and hatching guinea fowl eggs,

“I have a guinea sitting on eggs. How many days does it take to hatch and should i let her set instead of trying to incubate as i don’t know for sure how long she has been on nest.Do they throw babies out of nest at hatching? some one said you have to be there when they hatch. She has 25 eggs. Is this a lot of eggs for one guinea? Thank you for any info as i am new at this. Thelma”

Hi Thelma,
Guinea fowl eggs take 28 days to hatch. In the wild they will usually sit on about 12 eggs per clutch. You may decide, if you can get any of the eggs that you leave half under your guinea hen and put half in the incubator or under a broody hen. I have read that in the wild guinea fowl make great parents. They don’t like to sit on eggs in an aviary or a hut and I know from experience that if I try to put a run over my sitting guinea hen to protect her from predators she normally gets off the eggs. Guinea fowl should sit if they feel secure and hidden away. My advice if you want your guinea hen to continue to sit is to try not to disturb her but make sure that she is well hidden and protected from predators.
A couple of farmingfriends have hatched my guinea fowl eggs under broody hens who looked after the keets very well but I am not sure if the guinea hen throws the keets out of the nest. I imagine that if a guinea hen goes to the trouble of sitting on the eggs until they have hatched then she will look after the keets as well.I have only ever managed to hatch guinea fowl out using an incubator. When my guinea hens start to sit outside and I place a run over them it usually disturbs them and they get off the nest. This has happened 3 times this Summer already.
I hope this information is useful for you. Let me know how you get on.
Sara @ farmingfriends

If anyone has any advice for Thelma regarding guinea fowl sitting and hatching guinea fowl eggs then please leave a comment.