Hurt Guinea

[JimWWhite]

One of our guinea hens somehow got a string wrapped around both her feet yesterday. I went down to get eggs and found her hanging upside down from one of the cleats on the ramp going up to the coop door where she'd gotten it caught. I must have dropped it inside the run when I opened a bag of feed and didn't see it. She had a bloody comb and was really hurting you could tell. But with Teresa's help we removed it and it was wrapped around her toes and feet pretty tightly. We applied some Neosporin to the comb and let her go. Today's she's still hobbling a little but she's eating and moving about with the other four guineas. I just hope she'll be alright. We lost a male a few weeks ago but we have no idea what happened to him. He just started mopping around and laid down and died one day. He may have been picked on and pecked on by the alpha male guinea and just lost the will to live.

 

[PeepsCA]

Glad you saved your Hen. I've had that very same thing happen with the string... off the feed sacks, hay ties, and even a big ball of hair from my horses' tails. No matter how careful I am to throw all that stuff away the birds always end up finding some of it and getting tangled in it anyway

She should be ok as long as the other birds are leaving her wounds alone and do not start cannibalizing her... if they are pecking at her wounds you'll need to crate or cage her a few days until she is better healed, but be sure to keep her near the flock so they do not ostracize her. I use Blu-kote (livestock antiseptic), it works really well to hide wounds and blood. It's purple and stains/dyes everything instantly hiding it from the other birds. Her equilibrium is probably a little catty-whompered still and I'm sure her leg muscles are sore, so she'll most likely be "off" for a few days but should pull thru.

 

[JimWWhite]

Thanks, PeepsCA. Late this afternoon she was out roaming with all the chickens and other guineas when I let them out. She walks a little gingerly but the others are leaving her alone and not pecking at her. I'm thinking they did yesterday when she was tangled up but that may have been her flailing around and hurting herself. She's lucky I found her before she really did get hurt.

I noticed your signature line and I see you have quite a setup there. Do you have any bees? We're moving to ring our entire five acres with about 40 hives eventually. Raw, unprocessed honey here in NC sells for $8/pt at the farmers markets and it goes quickly. I've been selling it at work and I can't get enough to cover all the demand. Teresa sells it at her workplace too. We have a lot of sourwood trees and poplar tulips in the area and that makes excellent honey.

Thanks!
Jim

 

[PeepsCA]

Nope, no bees here... got stung too many times as a kid, messin' with my grampa's hives lol. One of my neighbors down the road below me has about a dozen or so hives on his land, so I get tons of bees here visiting my flowers, fruit trees and veggies. I have a friend that supplies me with local honey from hives that are on, in and all around a citrus farm. Yummy good stuff

, but I'd end up stung a million times if I had bees cuz I'd have a hard time staying out of the honey/honeycomb, lol

When you get your bees, you might want to fence the area off around your hives... Guineas have been known to sit in front of a hive and snack all day!

 

[JimWWhite]

Nope, no bees here... got stung too many times as a kid, messin' with my grampa's hives lol. One of my neighbors down the road below me has about a dozen or so hives on his land, so I get tons of bees here visiting my flowers, fruit trees and veggies. I have a friend that supplies me with local honey from hives that are on, in and all around a citrus farm. Yummy good stuff

, but I'd end up stung a million times if I had bees cuz I'd have a hard time staying out of the honey/honeycomb, lol

When you get your bees, you might want to fence the area off around your hives... Guineas have been known to sit in front of a hive and snack all day!

You know, I can relate to this. As a kid growing up in Alabama I would go all summer long with feet swollen from bee stings. A lot of clover everywhere meant a lot of bees. The only thing I can think of that had a higher fear factor for us was this long skinny brown snake which wasn't poisonous but was always there when you weren't expecting it to be there. Mama called them Coachwhips because that's what they looked like. They're first cousins to a black racer or a black rat snake. The good thing is they kill rattlesnakes and copperheads and kept them run off. Here's a pic of one:


And as far as the guineas go, yes I've run into the fact that they think honeybees are M&M's and they'll sit out by the hives waiting for them to come and go. I solved this by taking about 4 feet or so of 2x4 welded wire and making a half round out of it and standing it in front of the hives to block them out. They don't bother them anymore.

 

[JimWWhite]

Nope, no bees here... got stung too many times as a kid, messin' with my grampa's hives lol. One of my neighbors down the road below me has about a dozen or so hives on his land, so I get tons of bees here visiting my flowers, fruit trees and veggies. I have a friend that supplies me with local honey from hives that are on, in and all around a citrus farm. Yummy good stuff

, but I'd end up stung a million times if I had bees cuz I'd have a hard time staying out of the honey/honeycomb, lol

When you get your bees, you might want to fence the area off around your hives... Guineas have been known to sit in front of a hive and snack all day!

You know, I can relate to this. As a kid growing up in Alabama I would go all summer long with feet swollen from bee stings. A lot of clover everywhere meant a lot of bees. The only thing I can think of that had a higher fear factor for us was this long skinny brown snake which wasn't poisonous but was always there when you weren't expecting it to be there. Mama called them Coachwhips because that's what they looked like. They're first cousins to a black racer or a black rat snake. The good thing is they killed rattlesnakes and copperheads and kept them run off. Here's a pic of one:


And as far as the guineas go, yes I've run into the fact that they think honeybees are M&M's and they'll sit out by the hives waiting for them to come and go. I solved this by taking about 4 feet or so of 2x4 welded wire and making a half round out of it and standing it in front of the hives to block them out. They don't bother them anymore.