- Aug 17, 2013
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Hello, well, I had one guinea, Backfoot, that was saved from our coop burning down earlier in august. As her name states, she was the back of the flock. We got her three more guineas after setting up a better coop along with two more peachicks to go with our lonely one. (Backfoot was around 12 weeks and the new guineas were around two weeks younger than that.) They were fine and everyone was happy for quite a whilr until the three guineas started pecking on her and chasing her off. It was to the point where they would chase her if they saw her anywhere near the food bowl and she looked lonely and was always trying to escape the pen. If we free ranged them there wouldn't be a doubt in my mind that she wouldn't have been allowed to return at night.
So I remembered hearing that you needed around ten guineas to have a real flock and looked into getting some more. My aunt had five guineas that we gave to her earlier on and we belived the three that we had gotten were hatched with those ones.
We kept the birds seperated for a few days but they still could see eachother and interact through a fence. We put them together one night and for the first ten minutes, it was great. Then world war broke out and they were ripping feathers out so we seperated them again and tried the next day. It worked great then and they were all together but backfoot and three that we had gotten from my aunt were pushed away and pecked at. (It was weird, the five that were together were all pearls. Backfoot is an extreme pied and two of the ones that stayed with her were full purples while the last one was a purple pied.) It would have been fine except one of the full purples woudnlt let backfoot eat and the other wouldn't let Dragon, the pied purple, eat though recently that one has been joining with the five pearls.
But we had to move their pen the other day so we could join it with their new one and that meant forcing all the birds to be together. That did not go well. Backfoot was pecked bloody so we had to take the two that were mainly attacking her and stick them in a dog crate until we were done moving them. But now backfoot Is lonely again, she has dragon but she's stuck on the roosts all day either in their sleeping triangle or at the far end of their long run and I rarely see her eating. She would if it were just dragon that stuck around her but the full purple that chases her off, Waddle, stisticks around her more now too. And her, waddle and dragon along eith sometimes Dinner, the other full purple, are chased off and I noticed a few new bloody pecks on backfoot yesterday. Can I do anything about this or will it always be like this? Sometimes our peafowl protect them (I think they're more guinguinea than peafowl..) but I hate seeing Backfoot how she is. She's cornered and always has a sad look in her eyes and wants to get away. The few times a day I see her eating she practically burrys her face in the bowl but is all frantic and on edge, contantly walking away from the bowk then after making sure no guineas are around dives back into it.
We have three food bowl and I keep one in each section of their pen.
Also, it would be out of the question to get more birds this year. We have twelve as it is. Our pen could most-likely hold more guineas but I think twelve is enough for now and I wouldn't want to get more unless there was a 99% that it would solve the problems. Also, could it be a color thing? Do guineas group together depending on color? Would anything be solved if we were to get another extreme pied or two later on?
So I remembered hearing that you needed around ten guineas to have a real flock and looked into getting some more. My aunt had five guineas that we gave to her earlier on and we belived the three that we had gotten were hatched with those ones.
We kept the birds seperated for a few days but they still could see eachother and interact through a fence. We put them together one night and for the first ten minutes, it was great. Then world war broke out and they were ripping feathers out so we seperated them again and tried the next day. It worked great then and they were all together but backfoot and three that we had gotten from my aunt were pushed away and pecked at. (It was weird, the five that were together were all pearls. Backfoot is an extreme pied and two of the ones that stayed with her were full purples while the last one was a purple pied.) It would have been fine except one of the full purples woudnlt let backfoot eat and the other wouldn't let Dragon, the pied purple, eat though recently that one has been joining with the five pearls.
But we had to move their pen the other day so we could join it with their new one and that meant forcing all the birds to be together. That did not go well. Backfoot was pecked bloody so we had to take the two that were mainly attacking her and stick them in a dog crate until we were done moving them. But now backfoot Is lonely again, she has dragon but she's stuck on the roosts all day either in their sleeping triangle or at the far end of their long run and I rarely see her eating. She would if it were just dragon that stuck around her but the full purple that chases her off, Waddle, stisticks around her more now too. And her, waddle and dragon along eith sometimes Dinner, the other full purple, are chased off and I noticed a few new bloody pecks on backfoot yesterday. Can I do anything about this or will it always be like this? Sometimes our peafowl protect them (I think they're more guinguinea than peafowl..) but I hate seeing Backfoot how she is. She's cornered and always has a sad look in her eyes and wants to get away. The few times a day I see her eating she practically burrys her face in the bowl but is all frantic and on edge, contantly walking away from the bowk then after making sure no guineas are around dives back into it.
We have three food bowl and I keep one in each section of their pen.
Also, it would be out of the question to get more birds this year. We have twelve as it is. Our pen could most-likely hold more guineas but I think twelve is enough for now and I wouldn't want to get more unless there was a 99% that it would solve the problems. Also, could it be a color thing? Do guineas group together depending on color? Would anything be solved if we were to get another extreme pied or two later on?
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. Hm, I think we may have three males. Now that I think about it, the one that is for sure a male, is one of the ones that's pecking her and chasing her. The other one, is a she. Its the one that started chasing her off before we got my aunts. Those two are the 'top' of the flock and when they see backfoot on the ground they go after her and the others follow. 
it just seemed a possibility to me as they do seem to group according to color. We have the five main who are all pied pearls and pearls, then we have two full purples that group together and one pied purple who is kind of on her own and then backfoot, the extreme pied who is on her own.
