A little background, I have 5 chickens, 3 guineas. all pullets, no roos.
This afternoon I noticed one of my guinea fowls at the front storm door - a frequent occurrence, but normally all three of them would be there, They are practically shadows of each other and are never seen apart. So... Having only one knocking at the door was curious. Opening the door, I found my smaller EE also present - also odd as she normally avoids the bully guineas like the plague and hangs out with her orloff buddies.
Going out to investigate, I discovered my 2 orloffs at the left side of my house, standing tall and alert on the window sill as if they’re on guard duty, or something. Okay, 4/8 birds accounted for.
About 50ft away from the orloffs is the coop and run, I notice a bird of prey, not much bigger than the chickens sitting on top of the run. My presence scared it off.
Checking the back of the house revealed the rest - 2 guineas, 1 BSL, 1 EE under the porch. possibly hiding. They came out cautiously when they saw me approaching.
This was an interesting dispersion of my birds. Usually when they notice something amiss, their course of action would be to run for the shrubs - together. but not this time.
My guess is that they were spooked by the bird of prey (BoP). So my question is then, why were the orloffs standing in plain view of the BoP? They are my smallest girls. And if the BoP didn’t present a threat, why were 4 other birds under the porch? For birds who are always shoulder to shoulder with each other, how did the guinea get so separated, that two were at the back of the house and one was at the front?
Any experts in fowl behavior out there willing to take a guess as to what happened?
photos of my birds for tax
This afternoon I noticed one of my guinea fowls at the front storm door - a frequent occurrence, but normally all three of them would be there, They are practically shadows of each other and are never seen apart. So... Having only one knocking at the door was curious. Opening the door, I found my smaller EE also present - also odd as she normally avoids the bully guineas like the plague and hangs out with her orloff buddies.
Going out to investigate, I discovered my 2 orloffs at the left side of my house, standing tall and alert on the window sill as if they’re on guard duty, or something. Okay, 4/8 birds accounted for.
About 50ft away from the orloffs is the coop and run, I notice a bird of prey, not much bigger than the chickens sitting on top of the run. My presence scared it off.
Checking the back of the house revealed the rest - 2 guineas, 1 BSL, 1 EE under the porch. possibly hiding. They came out cautiously when they saw me approaching.
This was an interesting dispersion of my birds. Usually when they notice something amiss, their course of action would be to run for the shrubs - together. but not this time.
My guess is that they were spooked by the bird of prey (BoP). So my question is then, why were the orloffs standing in plain view of the BoP? They are my smallest girls. And if the BoP didn’t present a threat, why were 4 other birds under the porch? For birds who are always shoulder to shoulder with each other, how did the guinea get so separated, that two were at the back of the house and one was at the front?
Any experts in fowl behavior out there willing to take a guess as to what happened?
photos of my birds for tax
Still stumped by why my two orloffs were standing in plain sight 4 ft up on the window ledge. Were they trying to challenge the BoP?
