A NOTE ON THE PERFORMANCE OF THE CUBAN GUINEA-FOWL (NUMIDA-MELEAGRIS)DURING THE LAYING PERIOD

One hundred and fifteen guinea fowls allocated in 23 paddocks (4 femal es and 1 male/paddock) were used to study their performance during the laying period, Egg production per week, proportion of deformed and so ft eggs, feed consumed per brd and average fertility of three lots of eggs examined by candling, eight days after incubation. Sex maturity ( 22% laying intensity) was attained at 262 days of age and the lay conc luded (16.8% laying intensity) at 430 days of age for a laying cycle o f 168 days when the birds produced 93.7 eggs/bird (55.8% laying intens ity) consumed 90.1 g/bird/day and 164.4 g of with a fertility of 78.4% . The proportion of deformed and soft eggs/bird was 2,2 and 1.3% respe ctively. It is considered that the Cuban guinea fowl an adequate perfo rmance under the conditions here exposed, although due to the variatio ns observed, further generic studies allowing to improve the productiv e indices are required.