The Guinea Fowl. 



535 



chicks are put after they are hatched. For rearing the chicks a 

 combined coop and run has been found most convenient. This 

 may be cheaply made of boards and wire netting about 5 ft 

 long, 2\ ft. wide, and 2 ft. high. This should be divided into 

 two. parts, making a coop or sleeping compartment 2\ ft. by 

 2 ft., and a run of 2\ ft. by 3 ft. The sides of the run may be 

 of |-in. wire netting, the sides of the coop being closely boarded. 

 A slatted partition should divide the two sections, the whole 

 being covered by a span roof of thin boards. 



Feeding the CJiicks. — The chicks may be left in the nest 

 until they are about twenty-four hours old, and they can then 

 be removed to the coop and fed for the first time. Owing to 

 their liability to stray, the chicks must be kept within the con- 

 fines of the coop and run until they become accustomed to the 

 mother's call, but afterwards they may be given more liberty. 

 When newly hatched the chicks may be fed on any patent 

 chicken meal, moistened with milk and raw whipped eggs. 

 They should also get green food from the start, and the best 

 kind is chopped onions or leeks, but lettuce, dandelion, &c, 

 may also be used to advantage. When the chicks are a few 

 days old plainer foods may be freely used, and one of the 

 most wholesome is coarse oatmeal fed dry. This may be 

 varied by the occasional use of boiled rice, raw rice meal, hemp 

 seed, millet seed, &c. At a later stage, say when three or four 

 weeks old, some middlings and fine barley-meal may be added 

 to the mash. Grit of fine quality must be regularly supplied 

 from the time the chicks leave the shell. 



Value of Insect Food. — There is nothing so wholesome for the 

 chicks as insect food. Dried ants and ants' eggs are often used 

 by those who rear pheasants and guinea fowls, but in many 

 districts, especially where the soil is sandy, there are ant-hills 

 in the fields. In such farms it is only necessary to place the 

 coop in which they are kept near an ant-hill and the chicks 

 will feed greedily on the insects and their eggs. It is worth 

 while to have a light coop with a wire bottom made, and 

 the hen and chicks can be placed in this and laid over an ant- 

 hill which has previously been stirred up and levelled with a 

 spade. 



Young guinea fowls aie naturally insectivorous, and when 



