NATIONAL CITY, CALIFORNIA 



hatching no feed is required, as the sustenance from the egg is sufficient to 

 nourish them for this period. The first meal may consist of a little hard- 

 boiled egg mixed with bread crumbs, or bread may be soaked in milk, 

 squeezed partly dry, and fed in small bits. Clabbered milk also is very 

 good. Three times a day is as often as they need to be fed, one feed con- 

 sisting of clabbered milk or the bread and egg or bread and milk mixture, 

 and the other two of chick feed. If the coop is placed in a field or pasture 

 where green feed is available, the guinea chicks can secure this for them- 

 selves; otherwise, sprouted oats, dandelion leaves, lettuce, or onion tops 

 cut fine should be furnished. Water, grit, and fine oyster shell should be 

 before them always. 



By the end of the first week the young guineas will be finding enough 

 worms and insects to take the place of the egg or milk feed, so this may 

 be eliminated and chick feed given morning and night. If clabbered milk 

 is available, however, it can be continued with excellent success, since 

 guineas are very fond of variety in their ration and it is conducive to quick 

 growth. As the birds grow older, whole wheat, oats, and cracked corn can 

 be substituted gradually for the chick feed. 



ROOSTING 



When guinea fowl are from six to eight weeks old they will leave their 

 coop and start roosting in some near-by tree or other roost that may be pro- 

 vided for them. They prefer roosting in the open, but if they have been 

 raised with a hen they can be induced to follow her inside a poultry house 

 and roost there. It is advisable to have them become accustomed to going 

 in a house or shed of some sort, for otherwise it is almost impossible to 

 catch them when they are wanted for the market. Guineas, even after they 

 are grown, will not allow the mother hen to leave. When she goes to her 

 nest to lay, they follow and wait near by until she is ready to leave again. 

 This attachment affords an easy method of controlling the natural wild in- 

 stincts of the guinea fowl and makes raising them under domestic con- 

 ditions much simpler. 



