My guinea babies are half grown now and have their feathers. They are still quite spooky but that seems to be normal, according to other posts I've read here.
Yesterday morning I came up with the crazy idea that the guineas might enjoy roaming the yard a little. The yard is really two fenced acres around our house with nice large shade trees, a chicken coop, and a barn. Surrounding the yard are the pastures. Pretty darn safe for young guineas. I opened the door and immediately retreated to the house to watch. Nothing. I peeked back out. The guineas were still in the back of their cage. Maybe they needed motivation, I thought, so I moved their food dish about 2 feet directly outside the cage door. Still nothing. I waited, knowing how chicken the little beasts can be. Two hours later, they are still in the back of their cage.
Another hour later, one guinea found himself outside the side of the cage and kept running back and forth frantically. He couldn't figure out that if he just went a few more steps around, the door was open.
I couldn't stand it, I had to intervene.
I thought back to what I did when the chickens were hesitant. I walked behind and shooed them into a new spot. Worked great. I put on my best shooing face and tried it on the guineas from behind their cage. At first, they just schooled back inside like fish so I stepped it up a little with razzberry noises. Well, all of the sudden their was a guinea explosion.
It was as if their was a magic switch somewhere between shooing and scaring the living daylights out of the dinosaur-ish creatures. All eighteen flapped in 18 different directions. I backed off to see what would happen next. Six flapped up onto the roof. Several more were making a hard run straight back to the kennel and two, goofy birds were in the boxwood bushes at the end of my patio. They moved through the bushes while slowly sinking until just their goofy heads sticking up. It was "guinea bush surfing":
When everything settled down, I had two main gangs of guineas. The group that circled back to the cage and the wild group running back and forth across my roof. I think they kept running because it was hot on their little feet. In fact, I swear they were like little kids at the beach running barefoot on the sand (ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow). The roof gang finally figured out how to flap into the cedar tree near my son's nursery. What a strange sight seeing six guineas roosting in a tree just outside your window. My son thought it was great!
It all ended well and I learned that guineas are quite sensitive to "shooing". I won't be trying that again. Today, it appears that they have reformed into one big gang and they do seem to be enjoying roaming the yard. I still have food and water available in their cage. They really do school like fish!
Yesterday morning I came up with the crazy idea that the guineas might enjoy roaming the yard a little. The yard is really two fenced acres around our house with nice large shade trees, a chicken coop, and a barn. Surrounding the yard are the pastures. Pretty darn safe for young guineas. I opened the door and immediately retreated to the house to watch. Nothing. I peeked back out. The guineas were still in the back of their cage. Maybe they needed motivation, I thought, so I moved their food dish about 2 feet directly outside the cage door. Still nothing. I waited, knowing how chicken the little beasts can be. Two hours later, they are still in the back of their cage.
Another hour later, one guinea found himself outside the side of the cage and kept running back and forth frantically. He couldn't figure out that if he just went a few more steps around, the door was open.
I thought back to what I did when the chickens were hesitant. I walked behind and shooed them into a new spot. Worked great. I put on my best shooing face and tried it on the guineas from behind their cage. At first, they just schooled back inside like fish so I stepped it up a little with razzberry noises. Well, all of the sudden their was a guinea explosion.
When everything settled down, I had two main gangs of guineas. The group that circled back to the cage and the wild group running back and forth across my roof. I think they kept running because it was hot on their little feet. In fact, I swear they were like little kids at the beach running barefoot on the sand (ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow). The roof gang finally figured out how to flap into the cedar tree near my son's nursery. What a strange sight seeing six guineas roosting in a tree just outside your window. My son thought it was great!
It all ended well and I learned that guineas are quite sensitive to "shooing". I won't be trying that again. Today, it appears that they have reformed into one big gang and they do seem to be enjoying roaming the yard. I still have food and water available in their cage. They really do school like fish!
