46 PARADISE VALLEY POULTRY RANCH 



The Guinea Fowl 



The male and the female guinea fowl differ so little in appearance that 

 many persons have considerable difficulty in making a distinction. Indeed, 

 it often happens that those who are inexperienced in raising these fowl 

 will unknowingly keep all males or all females as breeding stock. Usually 

 the males can be distinguished by their larger helmet and wattles and 

 coarser head, but to be positive one should listen to the cry made by each 

 bird. That of the female resembles "buckwheat, buckwheat," and is de- 

 cidedly different from the one-syllable shriek of the male.. When excited, 

 both the male and the female emit one-syllable cries, but at no time does 

 the male imitate the cry of "buckwheat, buckwheat". Sex can be dis- 

 tinguished by this difference in the cry of the male and female when the 

 birds are about two months old. 



BREEDING 



Like quail and most other wild birds, guinea fowls in their w r ild state 

 mate in pairs, and this tendency prevails among domesticated guineas also, 

 provided the males and females are equal in number. As the breeding 

 season approaches, one pair after another separates from the remainder of 

 the flock and range off in the fields in search of a suitable nesting place. 

 Once mated in this way, the male usually remains with his mate thruout 

 the laying season, standing guard somewhere near the nest while the hen 

 is laying and ready to warn her of any approaching danger. However, it 

 is not necessary to mate them in pairs under domestic conditions to secure 

 fertile eggs, and most breeders keep but one male for every" three or four 

 females. When mated in this way the hens are more apt to lay near home, 

 and several usually lay in the saifie nest, thus making it much easier to 

 find the nests and gather the eggs. * 



Most guinea raisers allow their breeding stock free range of the entire 

 farm at all times, and this helps to keep the birds strong and vigorous. 

 During the winter the breeders should be fed a grain mixture of corn, 

 wheat, and oats twice a day, and where no green feed is available on the 

 range at this time of the year, vegetables, such as potatoes, turnips, beets, 

 and cabbage, should be substituted. Animal feed is essential to best results 

 and can be supplied by feeding meat scrap or skimmed milk. Given free 

 range, where the supply of natural feed during the winter and early spring 

 is ample, as it usually is in the southern portion of the United States, the 

 guineas can be left to pick up a considerable part of their feed. Free access 

 to grit, charcoal, and oyster shell is necessary thruout the breeding and 

 laying season. Avoid having the breeders too fat, but keep them in good 

 firm flesh. 



While guineas can be kept in the best breeding condition upon free 

 range, still they can be confined, if necessary, and satisfactory results 

 obtained. 



LAYING 



Guinea hens usually begin laying in April or May. A short time be- 

 fore the opening of the laying period the hens with their mates begin 

 searching for suitable nesting places among the weeds and brush along 

 the fences or in the fields. In this search the male takes as active an in- 

 terest as his mate, and when a suitable location is found both help to dig 

 out the nest and make it into a suitable shape. Each day as the hen goes 

 to the nest to lay the male accompanies her and remains near-by until she 

 comes off. Should anyone approach her he shrieks in warning and thus 

 betrays the whereabouts of the nest, which might otherwise be difficult to 

 locate. If several guinea hens are mated with one male they usually all 

 lay in the same nest, but sometimes a hen after mating will wander off by 

 herself to make her own nest. At other times the male bird, after helping 

 one hen to make her nest, will then desert her and pair off with another 

 hen to make another nest. 



