Housing guineas with chickens

[jjgj28]

Hello all, I'm new here. This is our first year w/ any poultry and somehow we have ended up w/ 22 chickens, 3 ducks and 5 guinea keets.

I have read on here about not mixing foul and our ducks are kept seperate from the chickens, but I wasn't sure what to do w/ the guineas. They are still in the brooder right now. I thought I read somewhere that guineas can roost w/ the chickens at night and can fly the fence and free range in the morning. That is what I would like to do, but don't want problems w/ housing the 2 together. If needed we could build a separate coop for the guineas.

Any thoughts?

 

[turnerstar31]

You will get a ton of different answers on this. First off I have a flock of free ranging chickens and gave one of my hen keets and she raised them all. They act just like guinas should and stay to themselves. They do try to chase some of my older chickens away from the food when they are eating but nothing more than that. This year I ordered some chicks and keets at the same time. I seperated the two groups for the first two weeks as the keets needed to have turkey starter. They need more protein. After the two weeks they all went into the same pen and have been doing really well. I still have been feeding the 24 percent and all is going well. I have never had a problem with guineas and chickens together but I do know that some people keep them seperated for one reason or another but that would not be possible for me. Good luck with them.

 

[Ace_king_brahma]

I've raised them together. There are problems as they grow up between guinea cocks and roosters. Guineas will start to think they are chickens and males fight the roosters. Guinea cocks fight differently and will confuse the rooster who eventually usually loses. Especially since the guineas seem to like to team up on most things. Guinea hens seem to get along fine with chicken hens.

Out of this whole arrangement we got two guinhens (sterile hybrid of both). I think when we got the french guineas things were a bit calmer with less fights as compared to the standard sized guineas.