Guineas -- food preferences during winter

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I have ten hand-raised guineas (adult now) and I have been feeding them super coarse scratch. They do not like the corn, however, so it is very wasteful. Then someone suggested mixed birdseed, but they do not eat the millet. Would like to know what guinea owners feed their flock and recommend before the spring/summer bugfest. Thanks.

-- T.D. Matheny (baztboy@hotmail.com), February 17, 2002

Answers

Ours still forage in the winter, but we throw them some shelled corn every day during the winter, and they love it. If you cut down the amount of scratch you are feeding them, they will get a little hungry and clean up the corn. After they get used to eating it you won't have a problem.

-- Paula (chipp89@bellsouth.net), February 17, 2002.

I have two 6 year old guineas that run with our chickens, they eat most anything the chickens do, including greens and vegetables of all types (the books all say guineas don't eat much vegetable matter, but our guineas don't read, so.....), they particularly like the third cutting alfalfa hay that I give the chickens in the winter when fresh green forage is not readily available.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), February 17, 2002.

Save your bacon grease and mix it up with the chicken scratch in the winter. Mine love it, it gets rid of something I have trouble getting rid of and they get a little fatter when they need it in the winter. Just a thought.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), February 17, 2002.

I feed my flock wild game bird feed in the winter and keep some out for them in the summer too to encourage them to hang around. Mona In S.E. Missouri

-- Mona (monalea@hotmail.com), February 17, 2002.

We usually just let the guieneas run around with the few chickens that have escaped the coop and the peacock. I toss them some chicken feed or corn and a handfull of hard cat food. The peacock loves the cat food. They peck through the hay also the horses and the goats leave behind. don't really worry about them too much and they seem to do well. I often find them under the bird feeders eating the seed during the day. Good Luck !!

-- Helena (windyacs@npacc.net), February 17, 2002.


I have guineas in a covered pen with chickens. I give them all laying mash in a regular feeder plus scratch feed on the ground as their primary feed. I buy 8 loaves of stale whole wheat bread a week at 25 cents a loaf which I give them (one a day plus some extra), plus I get mixed turnip, mustard and collard greens at the grocery store. When I stop at the health food restaurant to eat I always bring a five-gallon bucket and they fill it with "compost," which is the mash from the carrot and wheat grass juices they make, plus other left-overs. From time to time (at the advice of the man who sold me the guineas) I give them "game bird feed" which is kind of expensive.

I also give my birds free-choice on grits and crushed oyster shells. I save all my egg shells and crush them and once a week I cook them up with some bread and eggs I didn't eat or various left-overs such as melon seeds and rinds or crushed apples, etc.

My birds really like the variety.

-- Elizabeth F. Petofi (arvon104@cs.com), February 21, 2002.


We also let our guineas free range. They fly in to the chicken yard once in awhile and eat the chicken food that we have ground by a local wheat farmer. The major portions being ground corn, wheat, barley along with canola oil, fruit concentrate and other item. We also feed a leaf of 4th cutting alfalfa to our chicken and all salad/juicing leftovers, I'm sure that they help themselves to those as well. So far, we have not had any die of starvation and they seem to be content puttering around the whole farm.

-- Marie in Central WA (Mamafila@aol.com), February 21, 2002.

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