Breeding
Like quail and most other wild birds, guinea fowls in their wild 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 ranges off in the fields in search of a suitable nesting place. Once mated in this way, the male usually remains with his mate throughout 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 same nest, thus making it much easier to find the nests and gather the eggs.
Fig. 3.—Distinguishing between male and female. The helmet and wattles of the male (on left) are larger than those of the female.
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 throughout 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. One extensive guinea raiser has confined as many as 45 hens and 15 males in an acre pen throughout the breeding and laying season and been successful. This pen is inclosed with a wire fence 5 feet high and the birds are prevented from flying over by clipping the flight feathers of one wing. Within the pen is a grass pasture with bushes here and there where the hens make their nests by scratching out a bowl-shaped hollow in the ground. The winters being severe, a roosting shed is provided, having a cleated board reaching from the floor to the roosts for the wing-clipped birds to walk up.