Guinea fowl and hens..

[MichelleBB]

A little bit of background on the situation: I currently only have 3 hens (lost 4 about a month ago, due to a loose neighbor dog), 1 rooster, and 6 guinea fowl. All of my birds were raised together and I’ve never had any issues....until now. After losing the 4 hens, I’ve been noticing that the guinea fowl are being jerks to the 3 remaining hens. When I let them all out in the morning, the guinea fowl and rooster come out and the hens stay in the coop and eat and hide. I understand pecking order etc...but I feel these hens are miserable. Their feather “coats” look terrible and one has a bald area. What would you all do? If I add new hens in 2 months (I have 10 chicks in the house currently) will things calm down again if there are more hens? Should I build a new coop for hens only? I appreciate any and all advice as I am new to this... thank you

 

[R2elk]

A little bit of background on the situation: I currently only have 3 hens (lost 4 about a month ago, due to a loose neighbor dog), 1 rooster, and 6 guinea fowl. All of my birds were raised together and I’ve never had any issues....until now. After losing the 4 hens, I’ve been noticing that the guinea fowl are being jerks to the 3 remaining hens. When I let them all out in the morning, the guinea fowl and rooster come out and the hens stay in the coop and eat and hide. I understand pecking order etc...but I feel these hens are miserable. Their feather “coats” look terrible and one has a bald area. What would you all do? If I add new hens in 2 months (I have 10 chicks in the house currently) will things calm down again if there are more hens? Should I build a new coop for hens only? I appreciate any and all advice as I am new to this... thank you

This is normal behavior for guineas. When you imprint guinea keets with chickens, they lose the ability to understand that chickens aren't guineas. Guineas have entirely different instinctive behaviors than an other poultry.

Everything can seem fine until the craziness that is guinea breeding season. The races, chases, attacks from behind along with the feather pulling and breaking can greatly stress other poultry.

The only solution is to separate the guineas and the other poultry.

 

[MichelleBB]

Thank you. I was thinking that’s what I should probably do, but wasn’t sure.