Agressive Guineas

[Joe.G]

My male Guine is also starting to be a bully toward just one of my Silver laced hens, He grabs on to her tail feathers and see drags him around the yard, then she gets tired and he will peck at her, It seems like at first he is trying to mate her but then he gets nasty.

When the hen lets out a call my two roosters come running over and knock the guinea off, that is the only time my two roosters seem to do anything together. I am hoping it is just because of breeding season.

 

[Joe.G]

My male Guine is also starting to be a bully toward just one of my Silver laced hens, He grabs on to her tail feathers and see drags him around the yard, then she gets tired and he will peck at her, It seems like at first he is trying to mate her but then he gets nasty.

When the hen lets out a call my two roosters come running over and knock the guinea off, that is the only time my two roosters seem to do anything together. I am hoping it is just because of breeding season.

 

[angelbabyamy]

I have 3 Guineas that are 6 months old. A male and 2 females. I thought they might help to protect the chickens and they were hatched and raised by a BCM. They sleep with the chickens and I let them out early in the morning. They all free range, I don't have a run.

A little over a month ago, one of my roosters had a puffy eye. It looked like it had been pecked. He is now blind in one eye. A week or so later, when I locked them up one of my year old EE was bloody all over one side under her wing. I brought her in the house for a week and put her back out when she healed.

This morning, I noticed her standing by the coop, slightly hunched. I picked her up to check on her and her face is bluish and swollen, both of her eyes have been pecked out. I am sure she will be blind.

The guineas are getting butchered as soon as I get some propane and can catch them. I thought they might be able to co-exist peacefully with the chickens since they were raised by them. When I feed everyone, they will bite the chickens and pull out their feathers. I have also seen them hang onto the poor chicken while it runs around the yard trying to get loose.

I guess guineas aren't for me.

 

[PeepsCA]

Sorry to read about your Guineas being aggressive towards your chickens and injuring them. Only having 3 Guineas in a mixed flock isn't enough Guineas to keep them preoccupied with/focused on themselves. Raised by your BCM or not they still mature to be Guineas, with Guinea behaviors aggression and hormones.

Unfortunately Guineas don't come with a warning label, and there's just not much info out there about the issues that a mixed flock may end up facing if only a few Guineas are added. A lot of people tend to think that because they are feathered like chickens, can eat chicken feed and can live in a coop/pen that they will mix fine with chickens. Not always the case. Once they mature and the hormones of the breeding season start flaring Guineas can get aggressive, territorial and abusive towards any birds in a mixed flock. But usually when there are enough Guineas in the mix they keep all of their (normal) behaviors directed at each other instead of always targeting the other birds. Not every mixed flock situation with just a few Guineas goes bad, but a lot do. The amount of coop/pen space and free range time can play a huge role in having a peaceful flock just as much as the number of Guineas can.

Separating your injured Hens from the flock made the Guineas feel she was a stranger to the flock, so most likely that is why they targeted her again.... they no longer saw her as part of the flock.

 

[angelbabyamy]

She's been back with them for at last 3 weeks. One of the guineas hates one of my Olive Eggers and is always grabbing her. I don't think I would like the noise of several more Guineas,lol. My chickens free range exclusively with no fences, so there is plenty of room for all of them. I just rescued 7 EE yesterday and have them in a portable pen, I don't want the guineas to hurt them.