guinea keets and silkies

[gootziecat]

Does anyone have guineas and silkies together? I've had guineas with other chickens in the past with little problem. But I was told the guineas will be very bad for the silkies, once the keets get older. My keets are roughly 4 wks old right now, and the silkies are about 4 months old. I already see the keets playing games with them. Has anyone had experience with this situation?

 

[robin416]

I had to move my keets out of the brooder with my older Silkie chicks. The keets were faster and stronger than the Silkies even though they were younger. They were trampling the Silkies.

Later I had Silkies hatch keets. That worked fairly well until the keets were three or four months old. Again the Guinea quickness and strength was beginning to crop up even with the adult birds. They were not intentionally doing anything out of the normal for Guineas they were just being Guineas. Except for one that nailed one of my Silkie pullets in the back of the head and caused her to head tuck. Five years later she still has occasional issues with it. Its just not worth it to me to risk it again.

 

[MuranoFarms]

I have them together. What problems are they supposed to have? Mine seem to get along just fine. I have 1 guinea cock who bullies everyone.....even the marans though. Otherwise they all get along just fine.

 

[gootziecat]

I'm sorry to say I don't recall exactly what the problem would be between the Silkies and guineas. It was a long conversation about a lot of things. But to my best recollection, the guineas would pick on them, run them ragged, and cause a lot of stress in general.

 

[MuranoFarms]

My guinea cock tends to pick on everyone! lol Now he has a 'partner in crime' a male keet that seems to be coming of age. My females way out number the males and I'm only seeing problems with the males. Although, they will even run at and 'charge' the female guineas in their way....so I just think the males are little brats! lol I really think I need to keep my guinea population smaller then my chicken population, which it is now. I do have plans to move them to their own coop/shelter so I'm thinking that might help also.

All they really seem to do is charge at the chickens when they are too close to the Guineas. They never actually peck or bite. Just charge and the chickens run, then the guinea goes back to whatever he was eating. It's all chickens, not any particular breed. They seem to disregard the young ones completely.

 

[americana-chick]

I have guineas with my older silkies and they do just fine. And i have raised 2 guinea keets with one chik the same age and they did just fine. Actually, the baby chick thought he was a guinea for the longest time!

And right now i have 3 guinea eggs and one chicken egg underneath a broody bantam cochin hen and they are starting to hatch right now.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

I'm new to the guineas, but I'm actually surprised some of you can keep them with your silkies.

The problem I see is that silkies are so docile and easily beat up on. I've had problems with regular laying hens in the past with silkies. Not serious problems, but the silkies tended toeither hide or else stick by me just to keep from getting picked on. And my hens were not aggressive. Hmmm ... Some of my waterfowl were, but they left the silkies alone.

Could be it's going to depend on the particular birds involved and their temperaments.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

 

[Valley quail breeder]

I tryed to put my Guineas in with my RIR chickens but my RIR Roosters tryed to kill the Guineas...

 

[mama2many]

I raised two guineas with the chickens and one chicken with the 8 guinea keets. All did fine. I do have a pair of silkies in with them and 4 1/2 silkie 1/2 ees. Everyone has a click-they hang out with their click and sleep with their click. The silkies and silkie mixes hang together. The keets and one chick (10 weeks old) hang out with the big guineas and the big birds. The only fighting is with my big roo and my silkie roo but as long as they stay on their respective side of the run all is good. I just try to keep them together based on size. My guineas were older when I got the chickens so I put them together, then I had 10 guinea keets and ordered 25 chicks. The chicks, all but one were growing bigger so they moved on and I kept the littlest chick, Dallas, down with the guineas until she got bigger. They all live together in a 10x6 coop with attached run now. Hope this helps, for me at least space and size is what really matters. Enough space for them to live peacefully together and keeping same sizes together when they are small...

good luck!

 

[featherz]

I have 17 keets in with six same age large fowl chickens. They are approximately the same size and when I tried to separate them at one month the keets cried like I was murdering them. Had to put them all back. They all seem to get along great EXCEPT the keets are SO crazy that they sometimes will trample over everything when they get spooked. it's rather funny but I pull the chicks back so they don't get stomped. I assume I'll have to separate them when they get bigger, but right now they are all attached at the 'hip'.