Keets killed sibling

[Holler Point Farm]

I have raised chickens in the past but this is my first attempt at raising guineas. I had 4 keets in a brooder and they were doing fine, and then right out of the blue they pecked one of the smaller keets in the side until its innards were hanging out. Does anyone know why this happened and what I can do in the future to keep it from happening? The injured one was a different color, if that matters.

 

[sourland]

Sorry that you had to deal with that. Perhaps they need more space. Guinea fowl in my experience can be brutal once they target another bird whether of their own species or not.

 

[Holler Point Farm]

Thank you for replying. I will get them into a larger space asap.

 

[ShannonR]

X2... guineas are vicious. I never was able to intergrate any into a mixed chicken flock... they are just SO mean!

 

[R2elk]

I have raised chickens in the past but this is my first attempt at raising guineas. I had 4 keets in a brooder and they were doing fine, and then right out of the blue they pecked one of the smaller keets in the side until its innards were hanging out. Does anyone know why this happened and what I can do in the future to keep it from happening? The injured one was a different color, if that matters.

It could have had to do with the keet being a different color although that is something I see more in adult birds than in keets. It is more likely that once the smaller keet was bleeding that they went after the blood.

One poster was raising keets with turkey poults. Her report was that they would knock the poults onto their backs and then disembowel them. I would guess that the first instance was accidental but once they saw and liked the results they kept it up until the poster removed the poults and gave them their own brooder.

Once they get something in their minds, they can be relentless.

Good luck.

 

[Holler Point Farm]

That is crazy, I always thought of them as little velociraptors by the way they look, but I guess they are more like their prehistoric cousins than I thought.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

I had a small group of guineas that were raised together and then one day, out of the blue, one of them had a badly swollen, bloody eye that looked pecked. Despite treatment, the guinea had to be euthanized. I don't know what precipitated the injury, but I found the guinea fowl remained quite wild and, in some ways, quite strange (compared to the other fowl). They are certainly unique.