One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money

by Harold Morse Dunphy

For the first two days the hens should be confined to the coop, allowing the chicks to run in and out at will. They will not stay away unless there is another brood near by which they are apt to join. After the first few days the chicks become so attached to their foster mother that they will never leave her. By the third day the hen will have recognized the coop as her home and can have free range without fear of her wandering far away. At night she will return to the coop with her brood and can be shut in to protect her from foxes or any other night prowlers. After the dew is off the grass in the morning the coop can be opened and the hen and her brood allowed free range again. Should a rain come up they can easily be driven to the coop and the chicks will be kept warm and dry. The coop should be rain proof and built without a floor. If it is moved a short distance every day, the ground beneath it is kept fresh and clean.

Lice

Hens to be used in brooding guinea chicks should first be completely freed from lice. This can be done by dusting them with some good lice powder at the time they are set and repeating once a week during the period of incubation. Guineas are less likely to have lice than common fowl, but when they are raised with hens care should be taken to keep them from becoming infested. Examine the young chicks about the head and along the wing bar at the base of the quill feathers, and if lice are found grease these parts lightly with lard. As the guineas grow older they take great delight in dusting themselves and usually are able to keep free from lice.

Feeding

Guineas are fed in much the same way as chickens, but they require less feed, as they are natural rangers and can be trusted to find enough seeds of weeds and grasses, buds, insects, and green vegetation in the fields to supply much of their living. For the first 36 hours after 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 consisting 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 themselves; 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 conductive 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 6 to 8 weeks old they will leave their coop and start roosting in some near-by tree or other roost that may be provided 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 instincts of the guinea fowl and makes raising them under domestic conditions much simpler.

Marketing

The marketing season for guinea fowl is during the latter part of the summer and throughout the fall. At this time the demand in the city markets is for young birds weighing from 1 to 2 pounds each. At about 2¹⁄₂ months of age guineas weigh from 1 to 1¹⁄₂ pounds, and at this size they begin reaching the markets in August. As the season advances the demand is for heavier birds. During the fall of 1916 New York wholesale quotations for dressed guineas were as follows: