Juvenile delinquent guineas

[speckledhen]

The lady who bought my four guineas said that my alpha male, Dodger, got his goose cooked by a goose, LOL. Guess there were bigger, tougher birds on her farm than Dodger.

 

[brandywine]

Well, we had quite a week.

The guineas have been in guinea jail since Wednesday. They were escalating their aggression, and generalizing it, very quickly. Wednesday morning I opened the pop door, all the guineas ran out, and the chickens stayed cowering on the roost.

Closed the pop door and all the chooks came down and attacked the feeder. The guineas had been keeping them off the feed. Okay, I sez, that is it.

I constructed the guinea jail, and then spent quite some time, in a veritable blizzard, catching guineas. My usual poultry-herding dog, Moe, was having a bad day with his Lyme disease* and basically stayed in bed all day. So his little half-sister Rosie was helping me. I've never let her work poultry before, and she has no stock instruction, so I tried to keep a lot of control on her. This did not work. After half an hour or so, I gave up and just told her to "get them." She chased them like a crazy thing for about five minutes; my cunning plan was that she would exhaust them and I could pick them off with my net.

Instead, she "turned on" and became a herding dog! I've seen this happen before, when starting dogs on sheep, but seeing Rosie actually herd the most ornery (and best-flying) poultry there is was astonishing. Got six of the seven that way -- she'd herd them into a group, fetch them to me, and I'd get one with the net. Number seven disappeared while I was putting number six into jail, and we could not find him. A couple hours later he reappeared, and Rose got him cornered against the house for me.

So, they are all in guinea jail, and the chickens are so happy. They are back to being really friendly with people too; what I had interpreted as standoffishness was really fear of the guineas.

I'll see if I can sell them; if not, the freezer has space.

Quite a lot of people told me that guineas would be aggressive with humans and dogs. Nobody mentioned terrorizing other poultry. Now I come to find that everyone but me knew about that.


* It was our paranoia about ticks that prompted me to get guineas in the first place. Nobody should have to suffer the way Moe does.

 

[rooster0209]

I had a bad day yesterday and I usually defend my guinea's. I have a pair of Guinea's from the original purchase. The male has been terrible. He terrorizes the chickens when I open the coop, when he gets near them in the yard and when they come in for the night.

I was keeping the 16 youngsters that this pair hatched seperate from the flock until they were big enough to let out. I also have 3 that were hatched along with some EE's and have not had one issue with them and the chickens in the same coop. So, it was time to integrate the 16 + 2 silkies with the big birds. I thought things would be ok because the momma hen was hanging around the pen and watching the youngsters. (they were hers). That fricken rooster went on a rampage.

He attacked and terrorized the youngsters. He wasnt even getting along with 3 of the original birds that he came with and he attacks himself in the mirror. I had enough. These birds must all be together when winter sets in. The guinea's do have one side of the coop with a dividing wall, which I cut an access to the chicken side.

I shot him

Now there is peace in the coop and the yard