aggresive guinea?

[AlabamaChick88]

Following this thread, and adding my own experience.

I have 5 guineas. I have listened to these suckers for months now and still cannot tell male from females.

Anyways, 4 of them are absolutely HATEFUL to the 5th guinea. They chase it away from the reat of the flock, and it is stuck alone in the barn all day.

ALL of them are TERRIBLE to most of the chickens. They are ok with the one main flock rooster, and also the hen that hatched them out. But they absolutely terrorize the rest of my flock.

I'm almost ready to make meals of them.

 

[uphilljill]

We keep a mixed flock of guineas, turkeys and chickens all housed together. They all get along fine when the guineas are young, but I've found as our guineas sexually mature they tend to get more aggressive. Especially this time of year (mating season.) If the hen to cock ratio is off, often the beta male will be outcast. They will also pick on some of the smaller & more timid chickens, but I've never seen them bother our turkeys. They also seem to start wandering further as they mature. We always loose a few to predators this time of year when they start roaming to far from home.

I don't know if this behavior disappears again after mating season because I usually only keep them long enough to collect a some eggs for hatching next years batch, then process the adults.

We had a broody hen last year with chicks, but she was a dragon and keep her babies safe from the guineas. I think the guineas might be more likely to harass a gentle mama & her chicks.

And yes, the hens make the 2 syllable sound that people say resembles "buck-wheat," but I think it sounds like they're saying "ker-platt." lol The males won't make this sound.

 

[momkirk]

We originally had 10 guineas (last summer) but now are down to 5. We have had predators galore - dogs, fox, coons, hawks, owls! They have been raised with chickens and free range and roost with them. Just in the last couple of weeks we have seen guinea eggs in the nesting boxes so we know that we have at least a female or two. Our guineas have been terrible to our chickens lately - they will double and triple team one hen! I actually put them on craigslist and my buyer never followed through. I am threatening to kill them. They fight amongst themselves some but they love to terrorize my hens. The poor hen under attack will run for a while and then find a wall or corner and try to hunker down. It is not just a particular hen but seems to be any one. I don't have any roosters.

 

[KAZROB]

Gee, I hope things don't change for much me, I had three guineas one male and two females, but unfortunately one of my females was killed. But the two that I have are no problems at all, they are quiet, calm and mix in well with all the animals, barely make a noise! I hope it all stays this way, as I have seven keets which are 5 weeks old and are fostered by one of my hens...I want to keep them all so I hope I have no problems. I obviously have been fortunate so far have lovely, calm and nice guineas, fingers crossed the babies are the same as they grow..good luck with your Guineas

 

[rubyredder]

I have 2 guineas now, (I started with 10 and had trouble with someones dog earing them), ANYWAY, when I had 10 guineas they paid no mind to my chickens. I've had to keep them separate, the chickens stay in their run when the guineas roam free, when the guineas are locked away, the chickens run free. Even though the guineas were raised with chicks, I've noticed now that I have 2 they like to hang out by the chicken run and try to "intimidate" the chickens who give them absolutely no attention. My female is worse than the male. I've tried letting the guineas and chickens out together and the guineas love herding them around and pull their feathers out so there's no more of that! Must be a guinea thing...

 

[tlkjaw]

I have 3 male guineas (started with 22 but many different circumstances has highly diminished our guinea flock

) two of which get along fine. The other one however is constantly bullied by the team of guineas. The team will chase him off from the food and water and also try to chase him off when I put them in the coop. They have been this way with him for about a year (they are almost 2.) The guineas enjoy grabbing on to one of my BBW turkeys feathers and going for a ride while she runs around trying to shake him off. Other than that

the guineas are really nice.
My royal palm turkey had babies last spring and the guineas stayed clear of her. I didn't see an incident that the guineas went even remotely close to them until the babies were no longer babies.

 

[littlelisa2412]

I started out with 8 guineas and have lost 6 of them to predators (we have a vicious huge red tail hawk) the remaining two bully the sh** out of my chickens except the ones that are physically bigger -so just my rooster and my cochin. I think they are fun and pretty but not my fav fowl to keep. I dont think I'll get more

Btw male guineas and females are also physically different. The sound thing was so hard to tell for me (although if theyre making any sound at all likely theyre female, my makes were always pretty quiet) my males are physically larger than the hens and their facial waddles are very large and cupped. The females have small waddles.

 

[alpacaroad]

Last year my Wellsummer hen sat on 17 Guinea eggs and hatched them all. The Guinea chicks assumed the hen was their mom and followed her around. She took very good care of them. They still follow her so we don't have them picking on the chicken because she is their mother.