guinea fowl and vegetable fields

[christinepi]

I'm thinking of getting guinea fowl and would like to keep them free ranging. I live on a large property with some fenced in vegetable fields (7 feet deer fence). Is there any danger they'd fly into these fields? As long as they only go after pests, that would even be fine, but I don't want them to eat the crops.

 

[Tony K T]

If you pen them up for month or so before you let them out they should return every night.That's if they don't get eaten or chased off by something.
In N.H.,Tony.

 

[christinepi]

My question was whether they would fly into a fenced in vegetable field to raid the crops?

 

[Tony K T]

Probably.
In N.H.,Tony.

 

[GuineaFowling]

They would definitely try to fly into the vegetable fields. From my experience the guineas dont tend to harm the plants as much as the chickens. I let the guineas in for pest control because I go all organic (if you use pesticides its best to keep your birds away from the plants). Keep the guineas away from your plants for the first two weeks or until the plants are big enough to withstand birds walking amongst them. My guineas do eat the veggies sometimes but I plant a lot and dont mind that. They normally go for smaller tomatoes such as cherry but sometimes do eat the bigger tomatoes. They also peck around the pepper plants but never have damaged them.

This is my experience and everyone's is different. My birds are good and are only let into the garden when I permit it so they learned to wait at the gate.

If you dont want them going in the best thing to do is get something they are scared of and leave around the fence. I used to put rakes and hockey sticks around my garden when the guineas hadnt learned yet.

 

[MrsKemmerlin]

We have a pair of guineas and those little boogers eat everything! We are a bit worried how they will do with our Spring garden since they literally ate through the majority of our sweet potatoes and have been munching on our collards this past week

DH refuses to put a fence around the garden, which is understandable, but didn't think of putting odd objects around it to spook them! Good luck if you get them! They are enjoyable, goofy and very curious -- but seem to like our garden goods as much as we do!!!