Rooster & Female Guinea behavior - need help please!

TanyaLlama

In the Brooder
Aug 15, 2016
10
0
14
Hello,

My fiancé and I purchased 8 ducks, 4 straight run guineas (3 male, 1 female as it turns out), 3 Buff Orpington hens and a Buff Rooster mid May of 2016. This is our first time raising birds. Everything has been fine up until this weekend. The rooster has mounted the female guinea two nights in a row. The first time my fiancé saw him on top of her and he noticed he was pulling the top feathers off her wings. She was bloodied and we separated her for the day until she healed - no more blood. After we released her to join the flock, that night he did it again. This time we stepped in before blood was drawn.
I am desperate to understand what is going on. Is this a mating thing or is this much more serious? None of my other birds are bloodied so I'm having a hard time making sense of it. I greatly appreciate anything you can share.

Sincerely,
Tanya
 
It sounds like he is trying to mate with the guinea hen. I would put him in isolation from the rest of the birds for about 3 days and see if that calms him down some. I hope this helps you.
 
It sounds like he is trying to mate with the guinea hen.  I would put him in isolation from the rest of the birds for about 3 days and see if that calms him down some.  I hope this helps you.  

Thank you for your reply! It doesn't hurt to put him in time out for a few days to see if it helps.
 
Your welcome and let us know if it works. Keeping my fingers crossed for you it does.
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well, Yes the rooster was trying to mate her. we have had rooster taking on guinea-hens.

Between chickens and guineafowls, the is a different with their mating behaviour:
• In chickens, A rooster may chase a hen to mate a hen even though she's still immature or not ready to lay.( or she's with chicks)

•In guineas, its quite different. The female guineahen only submit to the male. when the hormone kicks in and ready to lay eggs- A hen make a very low buck-buck sound, running with her body lowered close to the round (submitting) the male will run behind and take over ( its very super fast, you blink, you miss it).

So the reason your hen get bloodied is that, she doen't want to.
 
Update!

Things have been going well since I separated the rooster out for a while. I was very happy to see the male guinea keeping a closer eye on her and keeping the rooster at a safe distance. All is well for now. Thank you again for your advice and knowledge!
 

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