How long before new hens can free range with the gang.

[jengro65]

My neighbor gave me his 2 young guinea hens last night (he hates them) I put them in a chicken hutch I have in my big coop. I have 6 guineas and 60 chickens free range together all day and roost together at night. All the birds can see the new girls but not touch..... When can I let them out of the hutch? Will they run back home to my neighbor?? He keeps his birds penned up but mine run free all day but stay close to the house and never visit the guinea hater.

 

[ThePRfan]

My neighbor gave me his 2 young guinea hens last night (he hates them) I put them in a chicken hutch I have in my big coop. I have 6 guineas and 60 chickens free range together all day and roost together at night. All the birds can see the new girls but not touch..... When can I let them out of the hutch? Will they run back home to my neighbor?? He keeps his birds penned up but mine run free all day but stay close to the house and never visit the guinea hater.

Letting them out with gang is fine,Give treats so everyone kinda of focuses from the fact their with strangers9the guineas)

 

[jengro65]

Thank you PRfan I read somewhere that guineas needed to be penned up for a couple of weeks before they understood where home was. I was hoping that was an exaggeration.

 

[R2elk]

My neighbor gave me his 2 young guinea hens last night (he hates them) I put them in a chicken hutch I have in my big coop. I have 6 guineas and 60 chickens free range together all day and roost together at night. All the birds can see the new girls but not touch..... When can I let them out of the hutch? Will they run back home to my neighbor?? He keeps his birds penned up but mine run free all day but stay close to the house and never visit the guinea hater.

Every situation is different. The recommended amount of time to get guineas to learn their new home is confinement for 6 weeks.

In my situation I added a guinea hen to a group of 2 males and 2 hens and 2 young of the year males. I also had two 6 week old keets to add to the group. I put the new hen in an enclosed area with the 2 keets for several days while a built an enclosure in the guinea coop. I transferred the new hen and the 2 keets to the enclosure in the guinea coop. Since one of the adult hens was sitting on a nest, the males took a quick interest in the new hen. Because the enclosure was made of 2"x4" welded wire, the 2 keets were out of the new pen within the first hour and hung out with the young of the year guineas but they would not leave the coop since they had quickly formed an attachment for the new hen.

The mature guineas quickly stopped trying to fight with the new hen through the wire so I released the new hen after 2 days of confinement. She readily joined the group of mature guineas yet still spent time with the 2 keets.

In the fall I had the opportunity to add three more guineas to the flock. They consisted of 2 young of the year hens and a mature male. I placed the 3 new guineas in the enclosure in the guinea coop. After the fighting through the wire stopped (3 days), I released one of the new hens. She was accepted into the flock without being bullied and began hanging out with the young of the year guineas but spent most of the time in the coop near her penned up sister. I waited 2 more days and released the new male. after another 2 days I released the final new hen and removed the enclosure from the guinea coop. All of the new guineas pretty much hang out with the young of the year guineas while the original 4 adult guineas are still their own group.

Since your new guineas came from so close to you, it is probably better to err on the long side of confinement to be safe. I do recommend that when you do release them that you only release one since it will most likely want to stick around its companion. You could alternate which one gets released on a daily basis or just release one, see how things go and at a later date release the second one.

Adding guineas, especially hens to an existing flock is much easier than bringing in a whole new flock of adult guineas.

Good luck.

 

[jengro65]

Thank you so much R2elk