If you want tamer guineas, try feeding them millet seed (the small seeds in cheap birdfeed mixes). We have ours at the point now where many will eat from our hands, and one brave one will fly up onto my husband's arm to try to eat from the container. Some will let us pet them.
They free range and coop at night (except one who won't go in until the light turns off because the others are mean to her). They were brooded indoors for about 10 days and then in the coop, so they know it's home.
We spent quite a bit of time hanging out with them when they were younger, and now they like hanging out with us. They were gardening with me today. I picked rocks, and they supervised and ate grubs. Yesterday, they supervised my husband who was tilling with the tractor by running right in front of the tractor as it was moving.
I have also gotten them to follow me home about an eighth of a mile from a bridge they weren't supposed to be on, just by walking home in front of them and calling them. They haven't gone back, either.
They are afraid of our chickens (the chickens were here first).
Catching them though...good luck with that. We don't try because it freaks them out too badly.
They are a hive mind. For you Star Trek fans, they are like the Borg, and yes, we have been assimilated.
I can't believe I just wrote a multi-paragraph defense of guineas when I'm always telling my husband that I like the chickens better. Must be part of my assimilation, I guess.
In any case, good luck with your guineas. Try millet and only ever speak in a kind and happy tone even when you are explaining to them exactly what you think of their IQ, personal habits and immediate likelihood of ending up on your dinnerplate.
