Treats for Guinea fowl.
As with chickens treats for Guineas fowl should never add up to more than 5% of the diet and avoid any foods with added sugar and salt.
Treating your Guineas is not always as straight forward as you think it may be. Older Guinea fowl are naturally wary of foods they have never seen before and may refuse some treats. Guineas kept with chickens will never have this problems as watching other birds eat food will get them going.
Guinea fowl raised by chickens will eat anything their mother hen taught them to eat when they were young.
Below: Guinea fowl family grazing and foraging for food.
If you are going to feed grains and seeds to young Guineas or keets remember they will need grit in their diet or the grains will need to be sprouted, fermented or soaked to soften them up.
What can I give my Guinea fowl for treats?
Guinea fowl will naturally eat insects, grains and seeds so these items should make up the bulk of any treats you want to feed. I feed sunflower and safflower seeds as well as earthworms.
Below: Here are my pied Guineas eating scratch grains with my light Susses hens.
Millet is a particular favourite of Guinea fowl and hanging a spray up in the coop will help ensure they always come back home.
Millet and small grains like Dari can be sprouted to provide treats for Guineas as well.
What treats do Guineas like?
In the wild Guinea fowl are omnivorous foraging birds with a wide and varied diet that includes small mammals and frogs as well as insects, grains, seeds and in some cases fruit.
A list of good treats for Guinea fowl includes:
- Grated boiled egg (grate the shell in with it).
- Sprouted grains.
- Fermented grains.
- Seeds like sunflower or safflower.
- Insects like mealworms.
- Earthworms.
- Millet or Dari.
- Cooked rice. (Probably because it looks like maggots)
Your Guinea fowl may like fruit but mine just ignore it. When giving Guineas new foods they have never seen before they will likely rush around shrieking and making like you are trying to kill them.
What is a Guinea fowl favourite food?
A Guinea fowls favourite food is insects and worms. When I give mine a handful of earthworms they go absolutely mad rushing around and trying to grab as many as they can before the others eat any.
With Guinea fowl the excitement level is linked with the amount of noise they make and everybody in your local area will know if you have happy Guineas.
At what age can you start giving Guinea fowl treats?
Treats make excellent training food for helping to tame and train Guineas.
You can start giving your Guineas fowl treats from the moment they are dry and fluffy and settled into the brooder. You want them to see you as the person with all the lovely goodies and nibbles. Ideal treats for these early days are small earthworms, mealworms and soaked millet.
Below: Here is a batch of my keets eating.
You can sprout millet for young Guinea fowl as will to help with their introduction to green foods.