Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Nest Hide-and-Go-Seek
Guineas have a strong desire to raise their own young far from anything. Whether you
keep your guineas penned up or allow them free range, they do their best to try and find
a secluded place to make a nest, hide out their eggs, and raise their own. Of course, if
they are free range they will find a fencerow, bush, or isolated area for their nest. Penned
up, they look for a corner in the barn. Guineas are communal nesters. This means all the
hens, no matter how many there are in a group, lay their eggs in one nest until it is full.
Then one hen will start setting and the rest will start a new nest somewhere close by.
I'LL HAVE THE GUINEA
Guinea eggs are perfectly edible, tasting and smelling just like chicken eggs. They
are the size of a large bantam egg with a very hard shell.
Guinea fowl are very tasty, if a bit dry. Stewing them or cooking them on a rack
with water in the bottom of the pan greatly enhances their otherwise dry but flavorful
meat quality.
For years they were sold in fancy restaurants as “pheasant” until raising pheasants
in captivity became easier. When I first moved to Iowa, I sold all my extra guineas to
a man who took them to Chicago and marketed them to restaurants as pheasant.
A typical “wild” nest is simple and usually hidden in tall grass or under a shrub or
tree. I have found them in hay fields, under trees in orchards, in among thick squash
vines and even in deep rose-briar thickets. Guineas don't build elaborate nests: Usually
I find a slight cavity with dried grass full of 30 to 40 eggs. If the weather is not too cool
or too wet, the mother guinea usually hatches out every single egg!
Although guinea hens are dedicated setters and fierce defenders of the nest, they're
not great mothers. Mama guinea is somewhat disorganized, likes to wander, and forgets
to keep track of all of her children. Perhaps it's because they have so many young ones
that they can't keep track of all of them. It's common to see a mother guinea set out
along the fencerow in the morning with 30 or more keets following her. But come even-
ing, it's just as common to see only the strongest three to five keets who have been
able to keep up with her throughout the day accompanying her. A frustrated owner will
spend precious time tiptoeing through the grass and weeds trying to gather up the piti-
fully peeping babies the mama left behind.
