Guineas and Chickens together

[chickenma]

I had keets with my chickens with no problems . I think it is important for them to grow up together. They didn't know any better. They free range together and were buddies.
The only thing I didn't like about them was the noise they make.
They can be very anoying, noisy and can do this for a long period of time. if you don't mind the noise go for it.

 

[Kev]

It seems to be 1/2 will report "no problems at all" while the other 1/2 will report various problems, from anything like guineas will constantly harass one chicken/just the roosters/just one color or be quite aggressive to almost everything. Many had to rehome the guineas due to ever persistent aggression. My own situation.. guineas were fine, then for some reason suddenly started targeting ALL roosters. All roosters had damaged or nonexistent tails from the guineas trying to grab them to beat them up.. ALL the time. Getting rid seemed to help.. but not completely. They were much worse to the peacocks, I had to clip the male guinea's wings as he literally tried to kill him, no matter what the peacock did, the guinea was right there trying to take the skin off his face.. the peacock was just about ready to drop from exhaustion and the guinea was like the energizer bunny, constantly biting and pulling the peacocks face. Sure seems when guineas go bad, they go ALL the way.

It also does not seem to matter how the guineas were gotten or raised, either raised with chicks or raised by hen etc there are vicious guineas out of all methods. The odd thing is, if one batch does not work out you can cull all of them and start with a new batch and MAYBE that batch will work out.. despite everything else being the same. Back to 1/2 works fine, 1/2 don't.

 

[chickenlittle32]

I have guineas and chickens together...they all get along great...Follow a BR around like she is their mother...Guineas are now laying eggs in the chickens' nest boxes...

 

[speckledhen]

Mine did grow up with the chickens, at least from four weeks old. And they lived together just fine till the guineas were about 15 weeks old, just before the hens began laying. It was just very sudden. Up till then, they did great together. Raging hormones may have something to do with it.

 

[Kev]

Sudden aggression seems to be typical. First, mine started targeting several roosters, then it was all roosters. Was just the roosters for a long time.. then one male guinea would have a really weird pattern of completely ignoring the tom turkey some days but on other days he could not ignore him at all- if the turkey tried to ignore him, the guinea would actually go under his tail and um, bite right on his butt to get him moving. Even so, they all left all of the peacocks alone for many months after this and for unknown reason suddenly one day peacocks had bullseyes placed on them with the one in particular getting the brunt of it. Seemed completely random to me.

One other thing, the guineas were very hostile to new birds or birds in wrong places, such as if one of the penned birds(any kind) got out of accident, they would all take turns 'body slamming' it.. lost a peachick that got out by accident by that way.. the peachick could not deal with the guineas- it jumped up and flew far.

 

[SilverPhoenix]

I've had guineas for over a year and so far they've been fine with the chickens. They're not best friends or anything and they can be a bit feisty towards the chickens, but they don't physically harm them. I'm keeping an eye out for overly aggressive behavior, but so far they've been fine. I have an area in my run just for the chickens, though, so if the chickens want to get away from the guineas they can go behind the fence.