Guineafowl Past & Present By Michael Roberts
Guineafowl Past & Present by Michael Roberts £9.00
This book includes new historical references, methods of keeping Crested and Vulturine guinea fowl, experiences of wild guinea fowl in Africa and keeping and rearing guinea fowl on a small scale. The book contains chapters on housing, breeding, sexing and large scale commercial rearing together with preparation and marketing. There are numerous colour photographs and illustrations including photographs of 18 different colour variations of domestic guinea fowl.
The book has chapters on:
- History of Guinea Fowl.
- Names of Guinea Fowl.
- Origins and Types of Guinea fowl.
- Letter from Zimbabwe.
- Keeping Crested and Vulturine Guinea Fowl.
- Keeping Guinea Fowl on a Small Scale.
- Housing, Breeding and Artificial Insemination.
- Eggs, Incubation, Hatching, Colour Breeding and Pinioning.
- Sexing.
- Commercial Rearing, Intensive and Free range, Capons.
- Catching, Killing, Plucking, Evisceration, Trussing.
- Packing and Labelling.
- Marketing
- Health, Diseases and Ailments.
Click on this link to read a review of the book, Guineafowl Past & Present.
Price £9.00 +P&P.
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Hi,
We have a guinea fowl in our garden who has been sitting on her eggs for a long time now and some of them hatched this morning. We built a shelter around her from wire and she hasn’t moved from her nest. Do you think this will be ok for the keets to survive? Does she need to be able to get on and off the nest and wonder around; or do we need to leave food in the enclosure for her and her keets?
Thanks
Hi Bob,
Thanks for contacting farmingfriends and telling me about your guinea fowl. Congratulations on the hatch. Your guinea may not have moved because not all the eggs may have hatched yet and she will be waiting for the others to hatch.
Make sure that the shelter is predator proof and has an area where the keets can shelter from the elements (wind, rain or snow!) Also make sure that the wire is small enough so that the keets can’t get through the wire or rats can’t get in as rats, mink, stoats would get in and kill the keets. I would make sure that their is food and water in the enlosure. The keets will need chick crumbs and make sure that they cannot drown in the drinker, I usually add marbles or pebbles to the drinker so that the keets can still drink the water but can’t immerse their head in it.
Sitting birds may come off the nest once or twice a day to drink, eat and stretch their legs but if she is in the final stages of sitting then she may not.
Once all the eggs have hatched or the guinea fowl leaves the nest and the remaining eggs are not going to hatch the the guinea fowl should show the keets how to drink and feed although they will do this instinctively if the food and water is placed close enough to them.
I hope all the hatchlings are doing well and that the rest hatch soon. Keep me posted. Where in the world are you? I am based in Yorkshire in the UK.
Just to let you know I have a free forum with a section on guinea fowl http://farmingfriends.com/forums/forum.php?id=6
I have also written an eBook about incubating, hatching and raising guinea fowl keets which costs £3.50, it mainly discusses incubating the eggs in an incubator as opposed to a guinea fowl hen sitting but also discusses raising the keets to 6/8 weeks.
http://farmingfriends.com/incubating-hatching-and-raising-guinea-fowl-keets-ebook-for-sale/
Kind regards
sara @ farmingfriends
Hi, it’s me again!
Thanks for your advice. I thought I’d let you know that our guinea fowl ended up hatching about 21 chicks. We felt bad leaving them enclosed, especially since the mother was growing impatient, walking up and down the fence. So we decided to let them out during the day and then round them up at night. Unfortunatley, due to birds, other predators and just plain weakness, many of the chicks died. We ended up with about 5 or so for a while and we moved them into a large cage (about 3m by 2m and 2m high) and let them out each day, enclosing them at night time. It was quite an effort rounding them all up! Over the next couple of weeks, one died, I am assuming from sickness, as it happened while it was in the cage one night and the others weren’t harmed. Unfortunately, I fear a snake got into the cage about a week ago and killed off 2 more and now we only have one left! But we have decided to just let it and its mother stay with the other guinea fowl now, as it is able to fly. So far, so good. It seems quite content just tagging along with the other guinea fowl. I hope he manages to survive until adulthood. So, it appears that I’m not a very good mother! But we all tried our best to keep the chicks safe, happy and well fed. Obviously, nature took its course.