Starter feeding question

[rittert3]

I like to start all my bird on the highest protein i can find. I found a 25% (don't know what ever happened to the 28 i used to buy but can no longer find it) and wondering if this is to high for guineas also need to know if i should add some greens or live food (meal worms, crickets,ect...)

 

[Munchies]

Quote:
25% is great (just make sure it's non-medicated or could be hard on the keets). If the keets don't have access to bugs on their own adding bugs is a great idea. If you don't use pesticides or fertilizers on your lawn, lawn clippings (that are left to dry before being raked up) work well for caged keets as what they don't eat becomes bedding. Do not use wet grass as this introduces mold into their environment. Watermelon pieces are a good multivitamin and water source on hot days.

 

[rittert3]

I don't plan on keeping long getting eggs for free and havn't run anything through the incubator in a while so thought i would try. sure i can catch some bugs not sure if the nitrogen pellets my brother spread on the grass last month would bother them. The feed i was looking at is made for gamebirds so shouldn't be medicated.

 

[Munchies]

Quote:
If you are just harding them off to sell you could probably not worry too much about the lower protein %.

I would not use the grass for a month after any chemical treatment as it could make your guineas very sick.

You could get some wheatgrass powder from a health food store to add to their water, about one teaspoon to a quart jar. It works as a treatment for diarrhea also.

 

[rittert3]

not sure when the first sale will be after hatch i may have them close to a month and i want to have them healthy. he only treated one area of the yard and by the time they hatch it will be 2 mos i will still probably collect grass from another area. But anyway this guy told me he would give me whatever his guinea hens laid in a week for free (i got 9 eggs) and have heard they are bringing 2-3$ a keet and needed to run something through my incubator so i figured this would be as good a plan as any. I set the eggs this morn all looked good one a hair smaller but other wise all looked good so just crossing my fingers and hoping for a good hatch.

 

[Munchies]

Well, if you have any problems, let us know how it goes.

I'm calibrating someone's incubator for them and planning to run a load of quail shortly to try it out. It's a still air type and I run all forced-air models so this will get interesting.