mean

[dearnley]

my guneas are 2 1/2 months old were raised with 3 chickens who they are fine with they have been in the outside pen and run area about 4 weeks after there initial getting to know you period with 13 other chickens which they fiqured all that out.
today i notice there being little mean things chasing the chickens who are 3 1/2 months and some just starting to lay egss
i dont like there mean spirit all of a sudden they had been sweet docile getting along well... they still get along with there original 3 who they were raised together with IDEAS COMMENTS ( it is too soon to let them out ) from what ive read they would take off plus i have dogs.

 

[dearnley]

any ideas other then sit out there all day to police all activities i know 2 are female for sure by the sound they make when happy

 

[Mehjr10]

Usually it is the males that do the chasing, and mostly during the mating season. At least that is how mine have been.. I will let mine out by themselves during the day to give the chickens a break... I now only have 1 guinea hen laying and seems like the chasing has slacked up some.. Hopefully they will go back to their good ways.. Time will tell.

 

[buttercup95]

My neighbors guinea makes a game out of chasing her male peacock I think it's a hen doing it too. I always laugh because the guinea is so persistent in getting one of the peacocks feathers it's very comical. I've also noticed my guineas are very hyperactive in comparison to my chickens and they weren't chasing the chickens but I noticed the chickens getting tense around them so I just separated them. I have to room to do that so it wasn't a big deal. I've also noticed the chickens being more friendly since I took the guineas out.

 

[dearnley]

well i have marked the mean one we will see if its just one and if its male then go from there!!

 

[gguineasfamily]

Guineas do that. The males and females both chase and pull out feathers of others though the males usually do it more. They have this pecking order and if they are higher than someone they don't really like, they enjoy reminding that one. Mostly it's just a bit of harmless chasing - they just randomly go up to the other one, lift their wings up and chase them a couple of metres. If they do it once or twice, give them a warning by getting up close and speaking to the mean one in a stern voice. If the same one keeps being mean, catch it straight away, talk to it and lock it in the cage for 15 to 20 minutes. I call this detention.

For detention, they have to be caught almost straight away and put in a cage for, depending on the severity, between 5 minutes and 2 hours. After getting detention maybe 10 or so times for the same thing, they might start to realise it's the consequence of what they did. It takes lots of detentions for them to stop what they were doing.
Detention works best with just one bird locked up and if the others stay well away from the cage the naughty one's in.

I wouldn't do more than half an hour of detention unless they are really trying to hurt another bird like pulling out feathers until the other bird is really sad. I wouldn't do more than an hour for guineas your ones' age, 2 1/2 months is it? Only take it right up to an hour if that one's had many many detentions and is chasing someone right up a tree and following them up that tree and pulling more feathers out in the tree or jumping right on top of it and grabbing feathers.

Shocked by what they can do? You wait until they get older, at least 6 months. They won't kill anyone though. That's when you get up to 2 hour detention- and only then.

 

[dearnley]

i cant even catch them any more i marked the who i thought and caught beingh mean but saw another one today

 

[dearnley]

today 2 guneas were going at it pretty bad pecking jumping at each other i am going out of town for a week?

 

[gguineasfamily]

Sorry if I scared you but they're worth having. If you're keeping them in the cage you might want to partition them with the ones that get on together and separate the ones that fight. If they're free there's plenty of room to run. I've got a few tips on how to catch them.