Flock dynamic of guineas

[Virus]

I'm going to be getting about 12 or so guinea chicks this weekend and was wondering if i need to worry about males fighting? I'm just going to be getting a straight run from the farm store and they will be reared to be free range on my fathers farm, will the males fight or will they just establish who's in charge and be fine? One more thing do they need to be feed game/showbird starter or can they just have regular starter?

 

[LRH97]

My two boys usually don't squabble too much with each other. Every now and then, like the anyone else. They do enjoy harassing the roos though, and sometimes gang up on them. Of course, if you're raising them by themselves you won't have that problem. Nothing really comes of it though.

As far as feed, I've nearly always raised keets with chicks, and I use 18% unmedicated chick starter by Nutrena. I then switch to an all-flock pellet at maturity.

 

[R2elk]

I'm going to be getting about 12 or so guinea chicks this weekend and was wondering if i need to worry about males fighting? I'm just going to be getting a straight run from the farm store and they will be reared to be free range on my fathers farm, will the males fight or will they just establish who's in charge and be fine? One more thing do they need to be feed game/showbird starter or can they just have regular starter?

The guinea keets will get along fine with each other until their first breeding season. During breeding season they will follow the guinea rituals of chasing each other, attacking from behind and pulling feathers. In some few cases their may even be face to face fights. These fights will normally only happen during breeding season and may repeat during every breeding season. The rest of the year they will be fine with each other.

Guineas do best with equal numbers of hens and cocks or a few more hens than cocks as some cocks prefer to have more than one mate.

Due to their high metabolism and rapid growth, guinea keets need a high protein turkey or gamebird starter. It isn't just about the protein though. They also need the higher levels of lysine, methionine and niacin that are included with the higher protein level. I feed my guinea keets a 28% protein turkey or gamebird starter. They should be fed this starter for the first 6 weeks followed by 6 weeks of a good turkey or gamebird grower that is usually 24% protein.

After that they can be fed a quality chicken feed of at least 16% protein or an all flock feed. Be sure to keep a supply of free choice oyster shell available to adult hens. Guinea hens that are laying have a tendency to develop a calcium deficiency if their is insufficient calcium available.

Raising keets with chicks is a bad idea. It causes the keets to get imprinted by the chickens. This removes their ability to be able to understand that chickens and guineas are not the same. Everything can seem to be going great right up to the first breeding season at which time the guineas start their annual rites. The chickens do not understand why the guineas are attacking them and can become greatly stressed. I have raised keets both with and without chicks. I will never raise them with chicks again. As adults, my guineas keep to themselves and have no interactions with either my chickens or my turkeys.

Read the Raising Guinea Fowl 101 thread and pay particular attention to posts made by @PeepsCA .

 

[perchie.girl]

I'm going to be getting about 12 or so guinea chicks this weekend and was wondering if i need to worry about males fighting? I'm just going to be getting a straight run from the farm store and they will be reared to be free range on my fathers farm, will the males fight or will they just establish who's in charge and be fine? One more thing do they need to be feed game/showbird starter or can they just have regular starter?

Game bird starter.... The chicks are called Keets and they grow FAST and are NOt ever sold sexed... By two weeks they can fly straight up.... about six feet.

They are not like chickens.... In the wild they pair off, but there is no single one that will be in charge. They are not monogamous each season they pair off .... So the extra males just hang around forming a bachelor flock.

To give them the best start you should feed Game Bird Starter... Protein is higher.

deb

 

[Virus]

Thank you for all.your advice i was just worried they'd have fights to the death like roosters do. I'll be sure to use this as a reference while I'm raising my little keets.

 

[LoveMyChickenBabies]

I have 6 guineas, I know that we have at least 2 males, but I'm not for sure exactly how many. They are free-range and around 6-10 months. They rarely have serious fights and a lot of little things, which is just chasing each other around.

 

[R2elk]

Thank you for all.your advice i was just worried they'd have fights to the death like roosters do. I'll be sure to use this as a reference while I'm raising my little keets.

Fights to the death are not normal. There can be cases where the whole flock may pick on and shun a single member. It is always a good idea to provide the guineas with readily available hiding places so that individual guineas can escape from being picked on. These hiding places should be open on both ends so that the guinea that is hiding cannot be trapped in its hiding place.

Good luck.

 

[jwebs94]

I started with 12 straight run. I ended up with 7 being males. They will start facing off against each other in the brooder. But it was never anything really bad. And I never saw any bad fighting amongst them when I still had all 12. The issue was how mean some of the were to my chicken hens. --They were raised with most of my chicken flock and share the same coop. I culled one at 5 months for a bad leg -- a male. He had stopped eating and just hid in the coop. And recently I culled two of the meanest males (at 8 months).
I must have taken out the top male because now there is some fighting between 2 of the remaining males. But again, it's not bad or vicious. They mostly chase each other and when they catch up with each other there is feather pulling. The chasing is hilarious and when I see it the Benny Hill theme song plays in my head

 

[jwebs94]

And yeah, I agree with R2elk. I would never raise them with Chickens again, and I would give them their own coop. If I had done that, I wonder if I wouldn't have had to cull the meaner males. Perhaps they just would have left the chickens alone. I have 9 acres, so once the coop is open in the morning they do tend to separate for a big part of the day now. (Plus they love the neighbor's fields ) But they spent the last 8 months thinking they were chickens and acting like chickens. I'm a little more pleased now that spring is here and they are starting to roam away from the chickens more and just act like Guineas.
They start out smaller than chickens, I had to put rocks in the waterer base so that they wouldn't drown. Our Tractor Supply sells Quail bases, I would have just used those if I didn't have them in with chickens. They grow faster than the chicken though and were bigger than them pretty quickly.
I read they needed more protein but could be raised on chick starter. Since I had them in with chicks, I just used chick starter. The only Organic chick starter I could get around here was an 18% starter/grower. There is talk that they would grow to be bigger adult birds if feed the game bird starter, but mine turned out to be good sized birds anyway. Though I did end up with the one with a lame leg at 5 months, but I can't trace that back to the lower protein starter. --I can't not trace it back either... I'm just saying.

 

[R2elk]

Though I did end up with the one with a lame leg at 5 months, but I can't trace that back to the lower protein starter.

The lame leg does not have anything to do with the lower protein but it very likely has to do with the lack of sufficient niacin and thiamine in chick starter.

I won't even feed the 18% chick starter to chicks and definitely will not feed it to keets.