Chicken flock with gunieafowls?

[Reawsphant01]

Hello. I started off with a few chickens about two years ago and then i bought an incubator, and started hatching out eggs, then those eggs became mature and started laying eggs. Then I started buying cool different types like Ayam Cemani, Frizzles, Silkies. Then I stopped and thought, 'Why dont I introduce different animals to the flock and I thought that Gunieas will be the perfect next step. Which was a perfect coincidence as my local farm had guniea chicks available however only for limited time. I need to know about gunieas and fast. However I have no idea how they behave with chickens and what they need, so I need your help. Could you tell me lots of information about Gunieas and whether or not I shall have them. Please the more the merrier.

Please reply asap

Aws

 

[sourland]

Guinea fowl are a whole new ball game. Given enough space (think free range) they can cohabit with chickens under most circumstances. Understand that they tend to have a mob/gang mentality and at times will target individual birds for little discernible reason.

 

[Reawsphant01]

So would you recommend it or no? And how many? I have 20 chickens with a coop and a bit of a garden outside

 

[aart]

I'd not recommend it, especially with your more fragile chickens.
They'd do best with a separate coop and run.
From what I've read(I wouldn't have them here, too darn loud!) they need to be kept confined for a good long time before ranging or they'll just take off.
Have you seen this sub-forum?:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/guinea-fowl.45/
Do some reading there.

 

[Tre3hugger]

Guineas are not like chickens Raising them together usually works until sexual !maturity, then can get ugly fast. Guineas are much harder to co-op train. I confined mine for 6 weeks and still lost 5/9 of my first batch too preds because they wouldn't come home at night.

TLDR: Guineas do much better with their own space, and take a lot of time and effort to coop train. Wouldn't recommend throwing them into existing chicken flock.

 

[Henry&Friends]

I had 4 guineafowl with a range of chickens (probably about 9-20 chickens throughout this time) and within the forst year, 2 of them died. This spring, I had a male and female guinea left. All was well, loud but well, until they decided that my rooster must die. Every morning they came out of the coop, rearing and ready, to chase around and beat my poor rooster bloody. I had them put in a tiny run inside my run (my brooder run) and would occasionally put my rooster in with 3 hens so the guineas could have a day out. They eventually mellowed out just a little, because my poor, defenseless rooster started turning around and flogging the cr*p out of mr guinea before taking to the wind and running away. On many occasions I would intercept, my rooster would run by me and id step between him and the guineas and scare the life out of them. (Theyre very flighty and dont like people. Theyre fast runners, and will fly up in your face to get away from you.) Finally we had this old lady stop one day and tell us how much she loves guineas, and we were like well... Come up here tonight and you can have them. She came back that night, and we had a box i drilled an excessive amount of ventilation holes in that I put the guineas in. I put them in her car, thanked her, and never looked back. I still, to this day, think I hear a guinea screech and get cold sweats. Sometimes they infiltrate my dreams, like I'll find them in the woods and it just ruins my whole night. I raised them with my chicks, so they were coop trained by themselves and all that... It just meant they beat everyone to the coop and bullied my rooster for his spot, no matter where he wanted to sit. The only way ive been able to catch them is in the dead dark of the coop with the door shut, and they still laid into me with their sharp and abnormally strong feet regardless. In short, 2/10 would not reccommend