Can you keep Guinea Fowl and Chickens in the same coop?

[AlienChick]

My guineas live with my flock of chickens. My white guineas are particularly fond of my barred rock hens and follow them all over. My grey guineas are fond of my black australorps and stick with them.

There are those occasions when one of the male guineas will attack one of my chickens (usually the Polish rooster). They do not attack any of the other chickens.

And I've heard that mating season in the Spring usually brings on more conflicts.

 

[CALsilkies]

 

[CALsilkies]

I am pretty sure that u can keep guineas with chooks, but i am not 100% sure

 

[ooptec]

hey,

I have 25 french pearl guineas and they live w/the 25 meat chickens, couple of banty's, the 16 layers, the 2 peafowl, 5 toulouse geese and 4 turkeys all in the same coop which is about 12 X 14 feet inside w/access to the pen all the time. They all have their 'spots' on the roosts, prob according to 'pecking order'. The turkeys and peafowl have their rafter they like to roost on. several acres to free range and are let out every day. No probs, no huge fights. Occasionally will see a guinea chase a chicken for a short distance. In winter the geese and ducks are in separate outside pens w/a roof in a corner and 2 walls hoarded in 4 feet up from ground level as they are so messy inside all the time. Summer time some roost outside like the turkey toms as well as some of the the guinea's and peahen on top of the pens, ducks stay on the water.

Everyone was raised together from day-olds in the other 1/2 of the coop sectioned into a 'baby/juvenile' section. They are raised together but initially is separate brooder pens inside there till a couple of weeks old and they outgrow the 5 X 3 foot brooder pens. Then open a little door in the corner into their part of the coop so they still have to safety of the pens to dash back into. In a couple of more weeks they are starting to feather well and I open up the door into their private pen also. A couple of more weeks and I'll leave the pen door open and voila´ yard birds.

I banded the breeding stock w/UV proof zip ties and eat the young so to speak.

Works well for me but I think a lot of the lack of squabbling is due to the area they have to free range over lawn and bush/trees.



cheers

Edit for: spelling

 

[RedDrgn]

If you're lucky, you can!

We have a friend who had guineas (around 20) and chickens (10 or so) together. The birds apparently did just fine together, even roosted in the same coop, but they ended up getting rid of the guineas because they are epic-loud and were super aggressive towards anything they perceived as not part of their flock (including their care takers). And from what they told us, guineas don't attack singly, they attack in packs. You tick ONE guinea off and ALL the guineas come for you.

 

[ooptec]

hey,

Those musta been some guinea's.

Have had a couple of different flocks of guinea's over the years and that sounds more like my tom turkeys than guinea's

They can be loud tho .... When moved by myself to the new place was kinda lonely so brought over the chickens as didn't need a pen for them, but was the guinea noise I missed. Had to wait till my old flock hatched out babies and then brought the babies over.

cheers

 

[zootycoonman223]

Last summer I had no problem with my guineas being aggressive to my hens or roosters, or vise-versa. But after I lost 20 of my 30 birds in a single night to a ravenous mink or weasel and restarted my flock with a new, completely-predator-proof chicken coop built from scratch, which I call the Fort Knox of chicken coops, I found that the guineas were not so nice to my new chickens. Although the keets and chicks grew up together, the keets quickly assimilated with the four remaining adult guineas and they started bullying the new chickens, but they still did not pick on the two surviving adult hens from the prior spring. In fact the guineas fight so badly with the new chickens I've permanently kept the two flocks separate all since the late last summer. It may also be worthy to mention that with both times I've had guineas (I had 16 last year and 13 this year) there always seems to be one or two that decide they like chickens more than their guinea counterparts. From my own experience, I love both birds, but I have mixed feelings about keeping them together.

 

[ChickChuck22]

My guineas get on really well with our flock. The chooks go to bed at night and the guinea fowl roost in the shrubs and trees because they are pretty wild at heart. They hang around with our cream legbars as they have similar colouring, in fact they think they are chickens! The guineas are the underdogs at the moment, but are still quite young so it may all change.