guinea questions

[Chick_in_Indiana]

Be sure to keep him in the coop until he is 6 weeks other wise he'll probably wander off and get lost. I agree you need more then 1. They need the others to call them home if they get to far away. You cant really tell if they are male/female until they start talking, at about 4 months if I remember right.

 

[spectrumranch]

Guinea eggs are usually easy to tell from chicken eggs-- guinea eggs are more pointed and usually have small freckels on them. THey are very hard shelled compared to most other eggs.

To tell males from females- look, watch and listen to them. In adult birds, the males will have larger wattles. Most times the males wattles are cup shaped and the hens will have smaller triangle shaped wattles that lay flat. The males will normally run around alot more with their wings raised off the back, and seem to stand up on their toes. The hens will make a steady rythum call- alot say it sounds like-- buckwheat, buckwheat, buckwheat. The males will make louder harsh calls. But they will both make the loud sreaming when alarmed.

To tell birds apart- Get a bag of different colored cable ties. Place a different color (s) on each bird, this way you can tell them apart while watching them, because when you go to catch them, they will not be making the noise or running around. CABLE TIES work great for bands as they last longer than the spiral leg bands. Just put the cable tie loose enough that it moves up and down the leg, but not to loose so it will not slide over the ankle. Then cut the exta tab off so it can never tighten down on its own.

Below is a photo of our Vulturine guineafowl with cable tie leg bands on.

Randy www.spectrumranch.net

 

[gobbles!]

Quote:
Does this mean they don't need a coop, or any sort of structure? They can just make do, provided you have a lot of trees?