Guinea Questions please...........

[Mourningdove]

Hi all,
I have 5 guineas that will be 3 months old on the 8th and I am wondering about these things.
1st let me say that I have had them in a big wooden cage(solid walls, roof & wire door with built in roosts)
They are begining to make the normal guinea sounds when startled. They have been kept up in this box(off the
ground) for going on 2 months now with no heat and are thriving well. I live on a mountain and right now it's cold
high teens at night and not much better during the day. Now this cage is inside a wire run with a wire roof on it,
my questions are....1st when can they start getting on the ground? 2nd At what age can they begin the free range?
If they can be on the ground now, would it be ok to transfer them to the chicken coop? In my chicken coop I have a
covered fenced in area seperate that I had young chickens in, would this be ok for the guineas? Should I just wait
awhile longer? Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[sred98]

I would move them into the chicken coop if you want them to roost at night with the chickens. You might want to keep them separately penned from the chickens til they get used to each other. I don't know if that's possible, or not. Otherwise, just put them in there and hope for the best!

LOL!

Shelly

 

[Cindiloohoo]

They are ready to be out and about. As far as sharing a coop. I would not advise it long term. Guineas are agressive to chickens, even if they were hatch mates with them. I had 8 and all 8 piled on my roo and almost killed him. They were hatched same day. They're like little loud gang bangers...lol. I'd build them a seperate coop by 6 months at least. They range fine with chickens for the most part as long as there is plenty of room for all, but not coop and run. Just my opinion

 

[Mourningdove]

Thanks for the responces! Now what I meant by coops/seperate is this... I have a good sized coop where in the summer I ran a chicken wire fence through the middle kinda like having 2 coops this way, both sections have a covered inclosed run on it with a gate.
In early Dec. I let the younger chickens out of that into the bigger coop and run section to join the adults. The other section is smaller but still conected to the larger area and has it's own roosts. So I just wanted to know if the guineas were old enough to go there.
Keeping in mind that it's not as warm as the big wooden cage they have been in and the chickens couldn't get in there. Would it be best to leave them where they're at and let them just explore the smaller run?.