Guineafowl Chicks Without a mother need to be taught how to eat!

I started breeding game birds and chickens many years ago and quickly learnt than some species when hatching from an incubator needed to be taught how to eat!

The easiest way was to simply put some chicken or quail chicks into their brooder as they hatched and they never looked back

A problem arose a few weeks ago when the guineafowl chicks (keets) started hatching and I had no chicks available to teach them

Imitating a mother I tapped my fingers into the feed I'd spread on the ground, which they very slowly started to catch onto. This became a seriously time consuming operation as they only pecked when my fingers were tapping away. When I stopped, they stopped! I had to change my strategy

Taking a handful of feed I gently pushed it among them. One finally got interested and pecked it off my hand and soon some more followed

It was slow but it seemed to be working

I checked on them often during the day and soon came to the realization that they were not eating the feed I had scattered on the floor of the brooder but instead waited for the handful of feed to arrive

I was not winning!

I even sprinkled feed on the water font as I do to encourage day old quail to drink . . .

I put Plan C into operation. Filling my hand I moved it away from them as they ate and slowly opened my fingers to allow the mash to trickle to the floor. It attracted their attention as an insect would and some pecked at it. Others followed

I'm winning. I thought

Wrong! When the feed stopped falling the keets stopped eating. Plan D coming up . . .

At this rate I would run out of alphabet and the guineafowl would be adults and still eating from my hand! Sigh!

Guineafowl love grass and greens and instinctively eat it. Why did I not think of that before? I pulled up a handful of lawn grass, cut it into small pieces and keeping my hand up sprinkled it around the brooder
Well, those little critters exploded across the floor in a feeding frenzy

A few days after that they were eating normally

We had both learnt a lesson!