Guineas in Garden

[Mike32]

Can guineas be trusted alone in the garden? I heard that they are the best at eating the bugs in the garden but can I leave them alone and they not eat all the veggies? Thanks for your help.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Don't have a garden so I cant say from personal experience but I have heard that they are very good with established gardens. Meaning not seedlings and tasty green coming up out of the ground shoots. They don't scratch as hard as chickens do but they do scratch.

Now dust bathing is a whole other subject..... LOL. One moment hard packed ground another moment eleven guineas up to their eyeballs in bliss feathers beaks and feet every where..... LOL.. but I digress.

 

[Katy]

Mine leave stuff alone for the most part. They'll peck a tomato once in a while but that's about all they've ever done in mine.......other than the dustbathing if I don't get my straw mulch down quick enough in the spring!

 

[PeepsCA]

I keep my Guineas out of my garden until everything is well established and can handle a few random Guineas attacks, lol. They usually impatiently wait at the gate for me knowing that I'm bringing them some fresh greens or (gasp) some tomato hormworms, grubs and grasshoppers that I happen to find IN the garden. They all know better than to fly over the fence, luckily. They are allowed access only when I let them in, and even then I try to keep an eye on them just to be safe.

One bit of advice I was given yrs ago is that if you are going to let the Guineas range in your garden, as they are growing or penned up during winter or bad weather, never ever feed them things you'll be growing that you do not want them to eat once they do have access to your garden. A friend of mine lost an entire watermelon and cantelope patch in about 2 hours one day, oops lol

 

[Mike32]

Thanks for all the advice. I will keep an eye on them when they're out there.