BYC Guinea hen club

[guineapeeps]

All of my male Guineas are great with the keets. They lay down with them and let the keets climb all over them. As for the hens, all of my mothers have been great....fiercely protective of the keets and some even help care for ones that they have not hatched. Before I got my Guineas, all I ever heard was what terrible parents they are, but I have found just the opposite!

 

[redpennies15]

I am new to having guineas.
There was an ad for them stuck on the note board of our post office.
I gotta tell you, I LOVE MY LITTLE PTERODACTYLS!! 
I had no idea at all what I was doing, but they are most forgiving.  And I love to watch them chase bugs & frogs for mid-day snacks. Anyone thinking about getting some, SHOULD!! 
I live on a mountain in New Hampshire where ticks were a real problem. A few days after they were released (from house arrest after harassing the neighbors-what did I know!) they went to work cleaning up my yard & garden. The only thing they didn't seem to like were the cabbage worms.  Ah, well..... 
They've gone broody a few times in the woods, and my white one, Caitlyn was apparently gone after (by a fox?). I found her in a neighbors yard & she is now on home confinement until 
She can walk again. She's a tough one, so I'd like to see whatever tried to get her!! 
A neighbor stopped by with their dog before she was hurt & was just standing there talking to me when out of the woods she came in full-out attack mode, sending a full grown man & his medium sized dog running back home!! 
My other hen Bruce has become tame enough I can pet her & she even comes when I rattle the metal can I keep her food in. (Too Cool!! I was told that guineas are aloof & unsociable.)
My only word of advice is do NOT let them get hooked on Chook-Crack! It has become a bit costly. I do it, but if you're on a budget or don't want to start ordering 5# boxes of mealie worms from Amazon, don't let them start.  

I really hope others will chime in with THEIR experiences, as I have a LOT to learn still!

Guineas and gardening go well together. Guineas don't scratch up your plants or eat your plants the way chickens do. Guineas eat weeds, bugs, and weed seeds. In groups they will attack snakes.

I never could get mine to be friendly about holding or petting. As keets (chicks in guinea talk) they panicked every time I held them.

They like to roam pretty far, so we kept them in the chicken coop for during their adolescence, to teach them where home was. That way they always came back at dark to roost (following the chickens example). Luckily, ours stayed within a 10 acre range of our house. I've heard of some "free-ranging into the sunset."

I hope this helps, and I hope I can learn from you too

 

[R2elk]

Guineas and gardening go well together. Guineas don't scratch up your plants or eat your plants the way chickens do. Guineas eat weeds, bugs, and weed seeds. In groups they will attack snakes.

I never could get mine to be friendly about holding or petting. As keets (chicks in guinea talk) they panicked every time I held them.

They like to roam pretty far, so we kept them in the chicken coop for during their adolescence, to teach them where home was. That way they always came back at dark to roost (following the chickens example). Luckily, ours stayed within a 10 acre range of our house. I've heard of some "free-ranging into the sunset."

I hope this helps, and I hope I can learn from you too

You are correct that guineas don't tend to dig as much as chickens. But guineas develop their preferred tastes early and if you feed them treats from the garden, they will devour those treats whenever allowed into the garden. If you want your guineas to prowl your garden, never feed them treats from the garden.

 

[myfivegirls]

wondering if any of you have introduced baby chicks or raised them alongside adult guinea hens ... or how to do it?
Would it be ok if the chicks were in a crate (like with hardware cloth) for the first few weeks, then gradually introduced to the adult guineas with an escape hatch where they go back to safety?

 

[R2elk]

wondering if any of you have introduced baby chicks or raised them alongside adult guinea hens ... or how to do it?
Would it be ok if the chicks were in a crate (like with hardware cloth) for the first few weeks, then gradually introduced to the adult guineas with an escape hatch where they go back to safety?

Are you talking about chicks or keets? If you are talking about keets, they will not be able to do without heat until they are fully feathered which is going to take more than a couple of weeks to get them acclimated to ambient temperatures.

There are people who have introduced young guineas to their flock using a cage/crate/pen close to the adults. It is not done until the keets are no longer in need of a supplemental heat source and are usually at least half grown.

If you are talking about chicks (chickens) forget it.

 

[myfivegirls]

Quote:
Yes, chickens. I know someone who raised keets separately, then got chickens & introduced them to each other when a few months old. They did ok.

So, why do you say that it won't work?

 

[R2elk]

Yes, chickens. I know someone who raised keets separately, then got chickens & introduced them to each other when a few months old. They did ok.

So, why do you say that it won't work?

Introducing chickens to young guineas is not the same as trying to introduce chicks to adult guineas. The adult guineas would most likely eat the chicks just like they do with other small animals.

Most posts that you see about chickens and guineas getting along fine are made by people who have only had them when they are young. Guineas and chicks can get along fine when they are being brooded together and while they are still young. When breeding season rolls around the next spring is when you start to hear about all the problems between guineas and chickens. There are exceptions but in most of those cases the poultry has lots of room to share and there are usually a large number of guineas and they are not being forced to share too small of an area.

There is a current thread right now about problems between guineas and chickens.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1084805/guineas-and-chickens-not-getting-along-any-ideas

Guineas are a flock bird and their mannerisms are not the same as any other fowl that I know. I have raised guineas and chickens and turkeys together. I now house my guineas separately because of how they can terrorize other poultry.

 

[guineapeeps]

I don't think that the Guineas would actually eat the chicks, but Guineas are fairly aggressive and they may not be very nice to the chicks. Your chicks may end up getting picked on a lot. If you attempt it, I would watch the chicks very closely. The bigger the chicks are, the better they will probably do. Are they big enough to be out from under a heat lamp/brooder? Also, how old are your Guineas? Are they keets or adults?
I have heard some success stories with with keeping chickens and Guineas together. Last fall, I gave 4 of my juvenile/adult Guineas to a friend who already had about 10-15 chickens. Initially, the Guineas roosted in the trees and ignored the chickens until it started to get cold and the bug supply dwindled, then the Guineas started following her chickens into the coop. They all get along very well now but, in that case, the chickens were there first and the Guineas were the minority.

 

[wooded acres]

I keep my guineas with my chickens, we have 3 males and 1 female and then 6 hens. We did get them last year within a few weeks of each other so they were raised together from chicks/keets. They get along fine although we let them free range. They existed fine together for some time, the guineas mostly just trampled the chicks bc they lose their mind over anything... But once they got bigger things started to get a little hairy- one morning when we went to let them out of the coop (all slept together at night) we found one chicken hiding with a few others guarding her. We noticed the guineas got more and more aggressive towards her so we ended up separating off a section within the coop for the guineas. Everyone is happy now, although there is the occasional chase outside during the day; the hens mostly just go all submissive and the guineas may grab a couple of feathers and then they leave them be. I raised the guineas the same as the chicks tho so they follow us around and come when they're called . I plan to introduce my chicks this year to the chickens in a small cage inside the coop so the guineas will be exposed too!

 

[guineapeeps]

I very much agree that they lose their mind over anything! Mine freak out over the smallest things. A few weeks ago I put some new nesting boxes in their coop. They were so scared of the nesting boxes that they wouldn't even go in their coop that night. I found them clinging to the side of the roof outside their coop. I have one female that broke her foot last year and she was the only one to go in and roost inside that night. She seems to be the only sane one in the flock! You might as well forget about trying to change their mind or coax them in to something they don't want to do....it's like trying to negotiate with a brick wall. That being said, I've gotten very attached to these crazy birds and enjoy having them! I have thought about getting chickens but wasn't sure how they would get along, plus I worry that they would eat my garden. My Guineas tend to roam through the vegetables and don't touch any of my plants; they just pick off the bugs and move on. I don't really want to go through the hassle of fencing off my garden. Does anyone have any experience with chickens in the garden?