Do Guineas prefer to coop with chickens?

[FunnyBunny89]

Hi! For anyone who has ever kept guineas or guineas with chickens, I am wondering why my 4 new guinea keets are sleeping in the coop with my chickens.

I got them at 4-5 weeks old, and kept them in a pen for a week and a half. They slept outside for three nights, then moved into the coop and stayed in it all day. Now they're sleeping next to the chickens on the roost.

My friend, who I got them from, was informed that guineas will usually sleep in the brush or the wilderness basically, and that she didn't need a coop. I was not intending to add them to my coop as it is full and they are gonna be too big eventually.

Any idea on how to keep them out, or should I just make room for them in there too?

 

[FunnyBunny89]

Here they were this afternoon.

 

[fowltemptress]

Even if your keets were fully grown adults four is far too few for them to feel safe in a flock, so they're staying with your chickens to bolster their numbers for security. At four they'll either always stick with the chickens in an attempt to mimic a proper flock size, or if you're near anyone else with poultry (and especially guineas), your keets will wander off and become permanent members of that flock. I used to get lots of free guineas that way because I had neighbors who only wanted a few guineas free roaming on their property, and they never seemed to learn that guineas need a good sized flock to feel comfortable.

Ideally you would get at least six more guineas and build a separate coop for them, since guineas allowed to sleep outside at night are easy pickings for predators. Also, a week and a half would not be long enough to train the birds to the new coop, especially with the current four having already learned to use your chicken coop, so you'd need to be prepared to keep them confined to the new coop longer. If there's no room for that and you're intent on keeping the four, you may as well make room for them with your chickens. Personally, housing them together is not something I'd recommend. Guineas and chickens kept together often leads to violence, and problems are more likely to arise if your coop is as tight a fit as you imply, but some people never experience issues with mixing the two so it's something you could try. If you do try that wait and see approach and problems start, though, you'll want to intervene immediately and rehome the guineas because it will get intense and bloody. Guineas do not pull their punches and are not shy about asserting themselves.