anyone elses guineas do this

[cpegram]

I have 7, 8 week old guineas out in the coop with the chickens.....they have been out there for about 4 weeks...I let all my big girls out but the guineas came out to free range one day and since then just stay inside the coop....is there something wrong or are they too young or what? These are my first keets.

 

[bigdawg]

hi nieghbor, they will come out when they feel safe. when they do come out, it wont take them long to wonder all over. they cover alot of ground in very little time. they also will be the last to go in at night. just before dark. they are bug eating machines. they never get full of bugs and grasshoppers.

 

[southerngamebirds1]

ive got a pair og guineas that had to be forced out. they would walk back and forth trying to get back in. so i moved them to fenced in yard w/my young pullets. they dont stray far from pen and never away from the chickens. i thot i wud have prob keeping them near house, i seem to have opposite prob. will this change in time? i thot they were semi wild, they have no prob being near me, as long as i dont try and hold them. nor as loud as i expected them to be. do different breeds vary?

 

[robin416]

Think in the terms of them being babies and children. All they've ever known is the safety and source of their feed, the coop. Tossing them out before they're ready makes it harder for them to adjust, to be calm enough to realize that outside might be fun.

It took my keets a week or so before they climbed out of their coop door. And that's exactly where you would find them hours later unless something spooked them and they all piled back in. As time went by, about two weeks, I would see that the keets had moved around to the side of the coop. Still within easy hustling distance to get back inside to the safety they know.

Now a month and a half later they come up to visit the chicken coops, the garden, wander in to windrows, acting more like keets slowly becoming full grown Guineas.

Don't expect them to get it immediately, why should they? We let chicks have time to learn, why is it so important to shove keets out in to the world? They'll get there once they know its safe.