Greetings from Texas

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Jenbirdee said:
Hello and welcome!! I heard about how great guineas are at pest control but I also heard some people complain about how noisy they are. What do you think? Are they extremely noisy? Like worse than geese?
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Guineas are very noisy. In an enclosed building like a chicken house, they can be deafening. They are said to be good alarms when something strange is lurking around, but mine yell most of the time during daylight, so you never know if there is something to be concerned about or not. One will start yelling, and then the rest will join in, often for no reason at all.

They are great at pest control, particularly grasshoppers. When we first moved to our rural property, the grasshoppers were so bad that you could not grow a garden or have fruit trees. They would literally eat everything. My neighbor tried growing peach trees, but the grasshoppers ate the peaches, leaving the pits hanging from the tree. Then they ate the leaves and the bark, killing the tree. We had to specify aluminum window screens when we built our house, because the grasshoppers would chew holes in Fiberglas ones.

We got a flock of Guineas the next year, and they started gobbling up grasshoppers like salted peanuts. The year after that we planted a garden with no problems.

Also, their manure is dryer and less messy than chicken manure, and doesn't burn plants if you get it too close.
 
Wild Chickens said:
I grew up around chickens in cages.
I have a flock of 32 free range white guineas now (purchased from Ideal Poultry).
They eat grasshoppers, which would eat the garden and fruit trees if they got out of hand.
The eggs are a bonus.
I also enjoy organic gardening and computer programming.
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Ya know I envy you with the guineas, I would rather listen to 32 guineas than walk into the house and find a tick on me. Welcome to BYC! it's a pleasure to meet you and thanks for joining us. As you guessed, they are bad here this year.
 

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