Guinea Treats

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

I train my Guineas very early to come to call with either white millet or dried mealworms. Training them when they are older is not impossible, but it is tough. Try some live mealworm or super worms and if they are down for them then try to switch to dried. Helpful hints, you can buy bulk live mealworms online but the most cost effective way to buy them is find a reptile show near year and buy bulk there. A lot cheaper. Good luck

Mine are so prissy! They love dried mealworms and soldier worms but won’t touch the live ones! They also won’t eat live cicada grubs. When they were younger, I’d catch our numerous grasshoppers and throw them to them, but now they will only eat the little ones. They just stare at it if I catch a big one for them! When I let our chickens out, they go for frogs, small snakes, whatever! But not the guineas. They seem to prefer small things, like grass seed heads and (hopefully) ticks!

 

[R2elk]

Mine are so prissy! They love dried mealworms and soldier worms but won’t touch the live ones! They also won’t eat live cicada grubs. When they were younger, I’d catch our numerous grasshoppers and throw them to them, but now they will only eat the little ones. They just stare at it if I catch a big one for them! When I let our chickens out, they go for frogs, small snakes, whatever! But not the guineas. They seem to prefer small things, like grass seed heads and (hopefully) ticks!

Everyone's guineas can be different. I did not and do not spend much time with mine. They have discovered that the lawnmower is their friend and will happily follow in its wake or walk beside it feasting on anything it turns up including baby mice. They will stand at their perimeter fence awaiting any grasshoppers that get disturbed when I walk by their pen. The bigger the grasshopper, the better. They have killed toads and frogs. They have killed and devoured adult mice and voles. I have not seen them go after ants but the fact that I never see any ants in their pen must mean something. I have seen them surround and stare down a bull snake but not attack it.

Recently someone released fox squirrels in my area. A couple of days ago I spotted one in the guinea pen and saw a guinea hen trying to get close enough to check it out. The squirrel decided to take to the trees as the other guineas approached. The whole time the squirrel was in the pen, the guineas never made a sound.

 

[DoeAndGander]

Meal worms and white millet are the only two treats mine would give the time of day. It took a while for them to try it but they love it now!

 

[raymaratea]

Thank you all for your help. Our chickens love the dried meal worms, but not the Guineas. And there is definitely one who doesn't easily go in the coop that I suspect is being bullied as the smallest. They keep it on the outside of the eating area too until they have had their fill. I think I will try to get them accustomed to the meal worms as a treat. They like the wheat berries but that is part of their daily feeding at this point.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Everyone's guineas can be different. I did not and do not spend much time with mine. They have discovered that the lawnmower is their friend and will happily follow in its wake or walk beside it feasting on anything it turns up including baby mice. They will stand at their perimeter fence awaiting any grasshoppers that get disturbed when I walk by their pen. The bigger the grasshopper, the better. They have killed toads and frogs. They have killed and devoured adult mice and voles. I have not seen them go after ants but the fact that I never see any ants in their pen must mean something. I have seen them surround and stare down a bull snake but not attack it.

Recently someone released fox squirrels in my area. A couple of days ago I spotted one in the guinea pen and saw a guinea hen trying to get close enough to check it out. The squirrel decided to take to the trees as the other guineas approached. The whole time the squirrel was in the pen, the guineas never made a sound.

I expected ours to have dietary preferences more like yours. I’ve been feeding them live crickets and other insects since they were keets, so I thought they would like those a lot. In the summer, we have a ton of grasshopper like insects in prairies near their coop. As adults, I see them chase them around a little bit, and eat small ones, but they view the big hoppers very skeptically and I can’t see that they put a dent in their population. our chickens on the other hand are good at catching the hoppers. Instead, I see the guineas constantly gleaning seed heads from the prairie grass in summer. I’m hoping that they are picking up ticks as well! I also had almost no chigger bites this past summer, so I’m wondering if they could be impacting them, maybe just by disturbing the chigger nests as they glean the grasses... Although they always have feed available, the guineas ate almost no chicken feed last summer.

 

[DonnaScott]

Millet, cabbage and meal worms.

I only let 5 of the 8 out at all times so they don't venture off and get killed (which happened in the past) when I walk down with the red solo cup they come running and will go right in.