Helmeted Guineafowl

Our family got guineas for pest control and exhibition. We do good on the exhibition front, but guineas should really not be shown. They are an unwelcome addition to any show hall with their loud and repetitive screaming, their tendency to run into walls in order to get away from people, scratching judges, being impossible to catch if you were foolish enough to let one out. Guineas are an excellent addition to any situation if you want to increase the anxiety by degrees.
Guineas are also remarkably stupid. They decided to nest across the road and ever since them they’ve been getting hit, disrupting traffic, and rapidly decreasing in number. Good riddance.
One good thing about guineas is that they require hardly any special care. You could probably colonize Wisconsin with them if you wanted to ruin everyone’s day.

I had bought six from a local auction in NC as 2 week old keets, I had never had them, but my husband had while living on his dad's farm. We had a little over 90 acres at the time and my husband kept saying what good watch dogs they were, and I wanted something to protect my silkies and gold star laying hens since they free-ranged everyday while we were at work (only about 8 minutes away). We had gotten a Lavender, Piebald, speckled? (Like the piebald with no white) and three whites. While they were growing and feathering out, we kept them in a brooder with lamp. I tried to handle them everyday to get them used to us, as keets they would eat meal worms out of our hands and flit around like it was something spectacular. As they got older we realized we had four males and two females, so three of the males went back to the auction (2 Whites and the Specked) We then moved up to the main house on the farm and put the now 6 m/o keets in the layer's pen since it was further from the house. One night, we heard a terrible racket coming from the laying coop, both guineas and chickens creating a horrible ruckus, armed with a 9mm pistol on myself and my husband with his newly acquired Henry .45, we went to check on them. What happened was one of our Nubian goat had escaped its pen (in the same barn) and was scratching at the chicken door. Thankfully a false alarm.

Fast forward a few weeks....

Now out of the winter housing situations, the guineas were moved to the smoke house turned silkie grow out and brooder pen, which free ranged everyday now since the freezing rain had subsided. I came home from work one afternoon, watch as all the chickens scattered from my car except the guineas, who where circling around it and challenging the car for invading their turf (they see, sit and poo on this particular car everyday, must be something about the color red...) I get out and they launch an all out attack on it. Kind of amusing to watch, it was just a beater car, so it didn't really care, it was free entertainment, they gave up after about five minutes when the car wouldn't fight back. I go inside, change out of my uniform and hear another bad racket. I walked out onto our back porch and see the lavender guinea flying from in between the corn crib / silkie breeding pens and the husbands Man-cave followed close behind by a red tailed hawk. I ran back inside grabbed the pistol, again, ran back out side fired a warning shot and see the hawk fly off from in front of the well house. I run down there to find my poor lavender guinea, upside down, head tucked under his wing, breathing rapidly, like in shock. I scooped him up and brought him to our picnic table, set him upright, wrapped him in an old towel, to look at him a little better. Just had a puncture mark near his ear with little blood but was alert and squawking while doing my exam. His ruckus had sent the silkies and gold stars running for cover and kept them safe.

I also never found a tick on me or my dogs while out in the yard thanks to those three. I highly recommend these bird if you live off the beaten path with little to no neighbors, because of the noises they make.

great article a friend of mine give me 3 guinea about two days after i got my first chicks.I didn't know anything about guinea at the time I had focused all my research on chickens.I put them in with chicks since they were same age as the chicks about 4 days old.There is no sexing them until 15 or 16 weeks.Now they are 16 weeks and i have 2 males and 1 female and not exactly on the bottom of the pecking order.They share The Coopdeville with my Silverlaced Wyandottes and know when to come home at night.Maybe because they were in that coop at 8 weeks and i did not let them out for 3 weeks.I do a supervised free-range.I caught them one day 3 yards over and found myself rounding them up and putting them in time out.that works sometimes .I know that without them my chickens are less prone to roam far .My chickens feel secure around the guinea ,well secure enough to roam far with them.While they are in the yard though Can tell the guinea are the alphas.You have to work with them everyday like dogs,but overall they are good fowl.Mine have not laid eggs yet still waiting for that to happen.I'd post a pic but I haven't got a recent one yet