Guinea help

[Kat62]

I bought 4 laying hens, Murans, as keets, back in April or May, from Tractor supply, then about a week or two later I went back and bought the last three guinea fowls as keets, I'm not sure of the sex of any of them, they are supposed to all be females, well, we got them used to each other as they grew up together in the same coop, and I would sit by the coop and talked to them daily and they were getting along but now I noticed the guineas started picking on one of my chickens, so We figured that the chicken may be a rooster, and separated them, but my girls won't come out of the coop now, and today I was sitting on the deck by the steps like I have been just watching them in the yard, and all of a sudden one of the guineas comes up to me and chest butted me on my right side into my arm, twice, and I thought what was that all about, I walked over to their coop, they followed me, and as I was standing there, again the guinea chest butted me into my leg, we're not sure if we have 2 females and one male or the other way around, but I would like to know why this would happen, any insight on it, so I can solve whatever it is I need to!

 

[SmiYa0126]

Hi! Can you post pictures of all of the guineas? Guineas and chickens shouldn't be housed together, they cant communicate, guineas are aggressive, the chickens will be scared.... Kind of like they are now. I'm sorry

 

[R2elk]

I bought 4 laying hens, Marans, as chicks, back in April or May, from Tractor supply, then about a week or two later I went back and bought the last three guinea fowls as keets, I'm not sure of the sex of any of them, they are supposed to all be females, well, we got them used to each other as they grew up together in the same coop, and I would sit by the coop and talked to them daily and they were getting along but now I noticed the guineas started picking on one of my chickens, so We figured that the chicken may be a rooster, and separated them, but my girls won't come out of the coop now, and today I was sitting on the deck by the steps like I have been just watching them in the yard, and all of a sudden one of the guineas comes up to me and chest butted me on my right side into my arm, twice, and I thought what was that all about, I walked over to their coop, they followed me, and as I was standing there, again the guinea chest butted me into my leg, we're not sure if we have 2 females and one male or the other way around, but I would like to know why this would happen, any insight on it, so I can solve whatever it is I need to!

You not only imprinted the keets with chickens but you also human imprinted them.

The guineas cannot understand that chickens and people are not guineas. They are treating both the same way they treat each other.

Your chest bumper is challenging you for your position in the pecking order.

The other issue is guineas are flock birds that do best in large groups wih other guineas. I never recommend having fewer than ten. To solve your current problem, I recommend that you rehome your 3 guineas to someone who already has a flock of guineas.

 

[SamLockwood]

While guinea keets are adorable little creatures, adult guineas do not always play well with others (including other guineas). At 4-6 months old male guineas have all the aggression issues of roosters and more.

I never had one chest-bump me. I had a couple males try their head-down mating-charge behavior on me, stop just short of contact because they realized I wasn't running or squatting, look up at me for a couple seconds and then wander off.

However, I only imprint enough on my birds they don't automatically run away and I can herd them if need be.

The females can be aggressive, too, especially when they're laying eggs or they're broody. Trying to inspect or collect eggs in a nesting box guarded by a broody guinea makes adolescent roosters look tame by comparison. They hiss like snakes and will try to strip the skin off you.

Guineas are a very flock-oriented bird, and while I don't know if 10 is the magic number I'd say you'd need at least 3 mated pairs to get a proper flock dynamic. Even with my 15 if one or two get separated from the flock their brains shut down and they get panicky and even more paranoid than usual. They tend to mate monogmously and if they male-female ratio is lopsided they'll who ever the "odd bird out" is will tend to get aggressive.

The only reason I think my mixed flock gets along as well as they do is because they free range most of the day and they have multiple places to sleep that are out-of-sight of each other. During the day the 30+ birds break up into 2 to 6 mini-flocks, with even the 15 guineas rarely combining forces. There's plenty of places to go where they don't have to look at each other. At night there's one coop with mostly guineas, another with all chickens, and the enclosed run in between has roosting bars that's sort of "neutral territory."

Probably the simplest thing is to re-home the guineas unless you want to go for a larger, more elaborate set-up than you have.

 

[R2elk]

However, I only imprint enough on my birds they don't automatically run away and I can herd them if need be.

There is no need for any imprinting to be able to teach guineas to herd.

 

[SamLockwood]

There is no need for any imprinting to be able to teach guineas to herd.

Maybe "imprint" isn't the right word: I spent enough time with them so they got used to my presence, as well as train them. Maybe "imprint" is getting them used to being picked up, petted, and otherwise treated as pets. I guess then what I did was just training them.

 

[R2elk]

Maybe "imprint" isn't the right word: I spent enough time with them so they got used to my presence, as well as train them. Maybe "imprint" is getting them used to being picked up, petted, and otherwise treated as pets. I guess then what I did was just training them.

What you did was to familiarize them with you, not imprint. Imprinting happens at a very young age and causes them to lose the ability to understand what they were imprinted by is not the same as them. Imprinted ones when adults will treat whatever they were imprinted by (chicken or human) the same as they treat each other.

I don't imprint any of my poultry but I do train them all to be herded.