10 Best Packaged Meat, Poultry & Seafood

Bestselling Packaged Meat, Poultry & Seafood in 2023

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What to Feed Adult Guinea Fowl and Keets

Grow strong, healthy guinea fowl using my feed suggestions and feeding tips. Since feed mills are not making a Guinea Fowl feed, you'll need to locate a suitable game bird or poultry feed in order to satisfy the diet requirements your guinea fowl.

If you are starting out with guinea fowl keets, you should know a few things about how to feed them and what to feed them. Feeding guinea fowl, keets or adults, is not a science. You can't go down to the feed store and buy Guinea fowl Food. It doesn't exist. The kind of food my flock of guinea fowl prefers to eat, might not be the same as what your guineas like to eat. Like people, they tend to be individually unique and can often be extremely picky!

Guinea Fowl Keet Feeding Suggestions:

1. After you receive your guinea fowl keets, and before you put them into their heated brooder, you must assist each keet in getting a drink of water. Gently grip the keet in one hand and dip its beak into a shallow dish of tepid water. Dip the keet's beak a total of two times before going to the next keet. No further drinking assistance is required in the keet's life.

2. Keep the water temperature a little above skin temperature. Do not serve your keets cold water as it can easily cause their tiny bodies to chill.

3. If your keets have had a hard trip, you can give them a burst of energy by mixing some Pedialite into their water.

4. Begin feeding guinea fowl keets 24 to 48 hours after they are born. Keets will eat the yolk inside their egg right before hatching. The yolk is enough sustenance to keep them alive for up to three days.

5. Feed guinea fowl keets a highly enriched, high protein feed, such as Game Bird Starter. Look for a starter that contains 24% to 26% protein. You can use Chick Starter, but it doesn't contain the higher protein content growing keets demand.

6. If you have other poultry, the keet feed you purchase should also contain Amprolium (AMP). Amprolium is a coccidiostat that controls coccidiosis.

7. Put marbles or small rocks into the water dish to prevent an accidental drowning.

8. Replace old feed with new feed several times a day. Keets poop frequently - and everywhere -including inside their feeder and waterer. To keep from wasting feed, do not fill the feeder all the way. You'll also need to monitor their feeder closely, as they should never be without feed or water.

9. You can begin feeding your guinea fowl keets very small servings of various treats when they are about two weeks old. Refrain from feeding keets anything other than their feed for the first two weeks. Keet treats can include, fresh grass clippings, dandelions, mung bean sprouts and white proso millet.

10. Once your guinea fowl keets are about 6 weeks old, you can take them off the medicated Game Bird Starter and switch them to a non-medicated, 18% to 20% protein content Chick Grower or Turkey Grower feed. Mix some of their first feed together with their new feed to help get them accustomed to the new feed taste and texture. Remember, they can be very picky!

Adult Guinea Fowl Feeding Suggestions:

1. Provide adult guinea fowl that are not free-ranging, a 16% protein content feed.

2. You can give daily, treat-size servings of millet to your adult flock. They think it's candy! If you are training your guinea fowl, millet is the perfect training treat.

3. A basic bird seed mix is a wonderful supplement, but not meant to be the only source of food for guinea fowl.

4. Suet blocks can provide extra fat in the winter months, but not all guinea fowl will eat suet blocks.

5. You can also easily make high fat, high protein treats for your guinea fowl. See my article Winter Tips for Keeping Guinea Fowl.

6. Buy third cutting bales of Alfalfa for winter feeding. In most states, all the green grasses will be gone and the green Alfalfa is a rare and special treat for guinea fowl adults.

7. Provide a constant, clean source of water for your guinea fowl. Scrub out waterers on a regular schedule, using bleach to disinfect, making sure to rinse thoroughly before refilling with fresh water.

8. Call your local seed mill and ask if they have any seed "screenings" on hand for sale. Most of the time you can get the back of a pickup truck filled with wheat, milo or millet screenings for about $40. This is great for the guinea fowl and costs only pennies a pound.

9. Remember, your guinea fowl are not garbage disposers. Try to only feed them natural grains, without sugar, salt or preservatives. Scraps of stale bread are fine, but avoid feeding them meat or eggs in any shape or form.

10. Exceptions to feeding your adult guinea fowl eggs would be if you disguised the eggs with other flavors and textures. Some guinea fowl owners feed eggs back to their birds as a source of calcium by cooking them and mixing up special recipes that include other grains, etc. But be careful, you don't want to teach them to eat their own eggs - before you can gather them up and eat them yourself! Guinea fowl eggs are smaller than chicken eggs, but richer and tastier.

General Guinea Fowl Feeding Suggestions:

1. Store your guinea fowl feed in air tight containers away from heat sources. Feed can go bad if it is heated up or allowed to get moist.

2. Buy feed in small quantities. The fresher it is, the better it is. Watch out for old sacks of feed at your feed store. Check the manufacturing date for freshness before you carry it out the door.

3. Provide more feed to guinea fowl that are not free-ranging. Free-ranging guinea fowl eat enormous amounts of seeds, grass and protein-rich insects while free-ranging. Often, free-ranging guinea fowl don't require supplemental feed from you during the insect hatching summer months.

4. If your guinea fowl are kept in an enclosure full time, catch some grasshoppers for them. Old heads of lettuce and mung bean sprouts are also nice for birds living in constant confinement.Guinea fowl, like other birds, require grit in their diet. If your guinea fowl are not allowed to scratch in the dirt, you will need to provide some grit for them. You can purchase grit (small, chick-sized) at your farm supply store. Do not mix it with their feed - rather it should be offered separately. A small, wall hanging rabbit feeder is ideal for this purpose.