6 week guineas

[Wally]

I need some advice/experience,
My guineas are going to be 6 weeks old next week. They have been in a brooder in the chicken house for about a month now. I would like to let them out of thier brooder because they are getting too big for it and I need the space in the hen house back. Do you think it will be ok to just let them go in the chicken yard and run with chicks? Thanks


Today I cut a hole small enough in the wire seperating the guineas from the chickens for the guineas to get through but not big enough for the chickens to get into the guineas space. Hopefully when the guineas dicover the hole and go exploring if the chickens are mean to them they can scurry back into the nursury. What do yoy guys think? I'll keep you posted.....................

 

[mdbucks]

How big are your chickens? will the guineas be picked on? Mine are in with chickens, but they were raised from day one together, in fact the guineas follow one of my EE cockerals as if he is one of them. If different sizes I would worry about them getting picked on. If close to same size you could try to combine the groups and see how it goes.

 

[Wally]

mdbucks,
The chickens are 6 months old now. I was hoping they may mix without too much fussin' because they have been together only seperated by wire for a month. Do you think that will make any difference?

 

[mdbucks]

I would be careful it may work, I combined my chickens in with bigger ones, but also got to be introduced through a fence. Just be watchful because if chicken decide to press the pecking order to extrme they should be quite a bit bigger tahn the guineas, worst case you have to reseperate them. When i combined mine there was a little pushing and shoveing, but they did stay in two seperate groups till just recently now thier original lines are getting blurred

 

[Wally]

Thanks for sharing your experience

 

[Rafter 7 Paint Horses]

You will probably be OK for a little while with them together.
I would start building a Guinea pen right away, though.
Read what happens with Guineas & chickens in this thread.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=17669

Jean

 

[robin416]

Yep, to what Jean said. I've got my oldest Guineas in a seperate coop, my teenagers in a pen that they can not access the main chicken coop but can go out a seperate door to go outside. Very soon I'll have another group that are in with the chickens that will have to be seperated in to a seperate pen before they begin their hooligan behavior.

The thing to remember, one Guinea may start trouble with a chicken, but it quickly becomes the whole group joining in.

 

[mdbucks]

Robin and Jean- How many guineas do you have? Seems everyone with 2-4 guineas are having problems. I have 12 and so far have had no problems. Some roughness between themselves but not with chickens. Mine are 6+months and have been with chicks since day one.

here is another thread, but again only 4 guineas

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=152851#p152851

 

[robin416]

I have about 30 guineas. This is an age related thing for the most part. They reach that six month to about 8 month period and can be very vicious towards other birds. My flock of adults could care less. I've found them in with my chickens without them causing trouble.

 

[Rafter 7 Paint Horses]

I have had many different numbers of Guineas.

We had 1 Guinea 2 winters ago. He is a rooster about 25 to 28 years old. DH doesn't remember exactly how old he is. He would fly into the hehouse at night & roost with the chickens. If I wasn't out there at dawn to open the coop door, he would attack the hens & the roosters. He did quite some damage before we got some more Guineas to keep him company.
Once he had companions, they usually would sleep outside, but he would still once in awhile go back into the chicken pen & attack. Then the others started going in with him.

I put GD's dog in the chicken coop & run, & now they don't get the chance to fight. Sadie will break them up.

Jean