Guinea Fowl

There are several types of Guinea fowl. Our website is dedicated to the helmeted Guinea fowl. We have a very large flock of helmeted pearl gray Guinea fowl. The pearl gray Guinea fowl was the original color of this type of Guinea. Many other colors, as well as a jumbo variety of helmeted Guinea, are now in existence thanks to the careful selective breeding efforts of some dedicated Guinea keepers. Guinea fowl are also called Guineas, Guineafowl and Guinea hens.

Types of Guinea Fowl

Crested: Guttera pucherani
Vulturine: Acryllium vulturinum
Helmeted: Numida meleagris
There are other uncommon types of Guineas as well, but those small groups will not be mentioned here. If you'd like to see all the types and sub-types, visit Wikipedia.

General Information on Helmeted Guinea Fowl

For the first few weeks to the first few months of life, Guineas are called "keets." Later, they are then referred to as "sub-adults." There are no specific ages at which Guinea fowl go from being keets to sub-adults or from sub-adults to adults.

Helmeted Guinea fowl eggs take about 28 days to incubate, whether in the incubator or in a hen's nest. We have had eggs hatch in an incubator as early as 26 days and as late as 34 days.

Adult helmeted Guinea fowl stand from 15" – 28" tall, as a rule. We have never seen an adult shorter than 15", but we have had a couple of males get to 30". Adults weigh from 3½-5 pounds, though we have had a couple that weigh nearer to 5½ pounds.

Guineas are ground dwelling birds that are capable of short, powerful bursts of flight. They excel at gliding and we have seen ours glide for great distances after taking flight from elevated positions such as tree branches and hillsides.

Helmeted Guinea fowl go through a mate selection process in the spring. The process involves lots of chasing and some fighting amongst the males. Some of our males have harems of 2-5 hens, while some males have no hens at all. We have a group of six males that we call the bachelors club. They generally hang together and never have any luck with the ladies.

Helmeted Guinea fowl are excellent runners and can cover lots of ground quickly and with great agility. We have watched some of ours run over a mile at a time during the chasing rituals associated with mate selection. We have read that helmeted Guineas are both monogamous and that they mate for life. We have not seen anything in our large flock to support either of these statements.

The primary diet of the helmeted Guinea fowl is insects, followed by vegetation - and a dash of grit to aid in their digestive process. Guineas excel at pest control, which is the reason we originally started keeping ours. One of their favorite bugs to eat is the disease-carrying tick. Since keeping our birds, we have had no tick problems with our other animals, and our organic garden remains almost completely free of insects.

Helmeted Guinea fowl will sound a noisy alarm whenever anything strange enters their domain. This includes animals, people, vehicles and so forth. They are great home alarm systems. They will also gather around some types of threats squawking, and even attack and kill them on occasion, including snakes. Our Guineas have yet to kill any rattlesnakes, but they have alerted us to the presence of the snakes and kept them at bay until we arrive.

Helmeted Guinea fowl are available in numerous colors today including white, chocolate, bronze, pearl gray, violet, royal purple, slate, coral blue, lavender, copper, buff and pied pearl gray. The jumbo variety weighs from 5-7 pounds and is usually bred for slaughter.

Enjoy Our Guinea fowl Website

We pride ourselves on having the very best collection of pearl gray Guinea fowl photographs available anywhere. We have hundreds of great Guinea photographs taken starting when the birds were keets and going through adulthood. Included are some great action shots of fighting, displaying and flying as well as some real one-of-a-kind photographs of Guinea fowl life.

Our collection of articles has something for everyone, but the most popular articles over the years have been the ones that discuss behaviors. These remarkable birds do some amazing, and very often, hilarious things – those things are discussed, and possible reasons for the behaviors are brought to light.

Our Guinea fowl audio and video collection is vast, entertaining, enlightening, educational and often quite funny. Our videos are all on our YouTube channel: GuineaFowlTV.

There's more to do and see, and even a place to buy Guinea fowl-related gifts. Enjoy the website, and come back often to keep up with new photographs, articles and videos. If you have a question, visit the contact us page – we'll get back to you with an answer quickly.

Use the search facilities to find what you're looking for quickly and easily – this is a big site with lots of relevant information and searching will save you time and give you the best set of options.

If you haven't watched any of our Guinea fowl videos, tune in to Guinea Fowl TV.
Download a copy of our FREE book about Guinea fowl: Living With Guinea Fowl