I bought 3 guineas and have them caged, per the advice here, for a few weeks. I have one male and two females. They are supposedly 8 months old. My question- can I hope that the females will lay eggs in their cage? Or are they too young or too stressed? And is cracked corn, with small bits of greens/hay/whole oats a suitable ration for them if they are capable of laying?
guineas are seasonal egg layers, ours lay everywhere, some in the chicken nest boxes, some right in the middle of the pasture, sometimes they look for out of the way hidden spots, under leaning boards, if you keep in a barn for a few weeks, where there are nesting boxes they may go back in there to roost, I think mine just followed the chickens in there and liked it. as for feed, we feed our scratch grains, and chicken feed, layer mash along with the chickens. if you just have guineas some people feed them a game bird feed, they eat alot of bugs though. corn alone is not real good.
I feed our 3 girls and one male guineas the same thing as the chickens -- layer crumbles w/ oyster shell available at will, with a scoop or two of scratch scattered throughout the run to give them something interesting to do. They lay in the same nest boxes the chickens do, occasionally leaving an egg in the run or in the dog house that sits in their original pen location.
Guineas pair up and mate for life ---1 male to 1 female, permanently -- if you have 3 in a cage I don't know how that will work out. They're not like chickens where you can have 1 rooster for many hens. I have 3 males and 2 females that free-range, and they fought periodically with the extra male. Maybe we should have a trade!!
Guineas don't mate for life. It is common to see several females with one male and they might not be in the same "group" as they were the past breeding year.
I always read that they do mate for life, we lost a black guinea, his mate was lost. she just wandered around, they follow each other, but usually they are paired off. I read stuff on feathersite also... http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/Guineas/GuinHeadleySept03.html lots of good info here too
