Guinea's Attacking My Chickens

[splashie]

Hi Everyone,

We have had 2 female guinea's on the property for a couple of months now, all has been fine, calm.

All of a sudden our guinea's are attacking our other birds! They beat up our only Rhode Island Red rooster and we now have him safely tucked away.

But today the guinea's started attacking our Silkies, for no reason at all... We have witnessed the attach on our RIR rooster and the silkies, it was not just your normal everyday pecking order type of fight, this was a nasty, let's kill them attack!

Any idea why they might be getting aggressive like this? We did find 2 dead bantam roosters a week ago (we couldn't figure out how they died *see note below*) and now we suspect the guinea's. The guinea's always have access to fresh pellets and fresh water.

I really liked these 2 guinea hens, they have been calm and not yelling all the time. They get to free range all day and never locked up because we use them as an alarm against varmint.

*Note: The 2 dead bantams roosters that we were found were seen fine and healthy within 1/2 an hour of finding them dead. We were working outside on a goat pen and I found one right near the steps to the house. We do not have any poison laying around, the other one my husband found all beat up, also by the house.

Any suggestions would really be appreciated!

 

[cw]

maybe find them a guinea cock

 

[speckledhen]

That is my experience with them. I had to rehome my four guineas that were raised with chickens because they began attacking my RIR hens. They left everyone else alone except the RIRs. After they began attacking my BR rooster, I put my foot down and rehomed them. And mine were very sweet and tame with us, just hated red chickens. Guineas are nothing like chickens and anyone who expects them to be will be disappointed.

 

[splashie]

So you think they are frustrated?

I honestly didn't consider that.

Is there a possibility that they will teach the cock to attack the chickens too?

 

[speckledhen]

I had two cocks and two hens. It doesn't change a thing, sorry. Guineas are wilder than chickens. They attack with group bodyslamming techniques and can actually kill other birds. It was my alpha male who started the attacks--I saw him do it the very first time. Later, he and the other three teamed up on my RIR hens.

 

[splashie]

Hi speckledhen,

We had 2 guinea hens before these two and we never had a problem with them except that they yelled all the time and would hang up by the house, so we could never hear the TV!

But your right, they are nothing like chickens.

They have not attacked our turkeys, geese or ducks as of yet.

I wonder if I penned them for a couple of days if they would settle down when let back out?

If they keep attacking, I will have no choice but to re-home, but I would rather keep them if possible, but I will protect my chickens, they mean a whole lot more to me then the guineas!

 

[splashie]

Well, then I will re-home the guinea's, do you think one guinea on the property would react the same way?

 

[splashie]

I guess I couldn't understand why our old guinea's never attacked, but these do.

Could it be we hand raised the 1st two from babies and these two were purchased a couple of months ago from someone local?

 

[patyrdz]

speckledhen is sooo right! I have seven of them and they are mean to my chickens! If I let the chickens out in the morning, the guinesa attack them until they go back in! They were not like this before they started breeding, so I don't know if that is a factor or not! My last ones never attacked my chickens, bur they never started laying eggs, maybe that's why.

 

[Chik-N-Crazy]

This happened to me as well. We had a male and female each in two seperate pens with our chickens since they were born. (4total) This spring (mating season) they started bullying my BR hen. I didn't worry too much at first b/c the roo was chasing them off, but then I noticed my hens feathers were starting to look a little messy from them chasing and pulling on her. So out went the gunieas. They now free range and will not be put back in with my chickens.