My Guineas are now harassing my chickens!

Rebel Rooster

I Will Love! :)
10 Years
Jun 29, 2009
1,268
10
201
Central SC
My Coop
My Coop
My pullets have been laying for about a month now. The egg laying was increasing by the day and then Poof! I've noticed that my 7 guineas (2 roos and 5 hens[5 months] old) are harassing the hades out of my whole flock! They team up on my young RIR roos and chase my 20 pearl white leghorns all over the yard! I've never owned guineas before and I hatched these out the end of March this past spring. Any experienced suggestions??
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I'm wanting some eggs from my guineas so the stew-pot was not an option. (At the moment) They are rapidly getting on my nerves with this chicken harassment!
 
It seems to happen occasionally. I talked to various people when deciding whether to get guineas and there are lots of different thoughts on it. Some think that raising the keets with chicks will help and others think it will hurt for the same reason. The guineas will view the chickens as part of their flock if raised with them. Whether that means they are nicer to them or more likely to challenge them is open for debate. The same happens when talking about numbers of guineas. Some say a few guineas to lots of chickens will keep them from harassing the chickens and to remove a few guineas if there are problems. Others think adding more guineas will actually help the guineas make their own flock instead of bothering the chickens. I really don't know which one is correct. You may have to experiment. I would probably start by penning up the biggest instigators and see if things improve and if not move on to completely seperating the guineas from the chickens for awhile. When you let them back out they may forget about whatever started them harassing the chickens. Also make sure they aren't fighting over resources like food, water, the best dust bathing spot... and try to limit having to share. If they aren't free ranging or arguments are starting in the coop you may want to look at giving them more space.
 
Maybe penning up the instigator (s) will help, as mentioned. Within my own guinea flock I had one bully that was chasing away most of the other males. (I put different bands on their legs so I was finally able to ID the culprit) Well, when he started harassing and chasing my pet female away from the group I isolated him for a week in an empty coup. Released him back into the flock and now everyone gangs up on him, ha ha. Mix up their status quo a bit.
 
Thanks folks!! I think that I'm going to seperate them for a while. I put all 7 of them in an empty breeding pen this afternoon and things calmed down quickly... The pullets all came out into the main pen and started scratching and feeding and my roos commenced courting and breeding! Looks like things are going to get back to normal.
Thanks again for the advice folks!!
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Quote:
I've had good success with mixed Guineas and Chickens by raising them together-------that was the only way I got the Guineas to roost in the coop at night. I incubated Guinea eggs and added chicken eggs after a week to get them to hatch together. I've also started my chicken eggs incubating to have new chicks ready to put in the brooder when the Keets arrive. See my BYC page for pics of the coop and run. The Chickens stay in the run and the Guineas fly out during the day to bug hunt, they are worth the racket just for the tick & flea removal service. We use to pull off ticks 3 to 4 times a day even in the short grass yard. The first summer I had a dozen Guineas roaming, only one tick the entire summer was found. Oh...back to the original question---I introduce the new Keets and Chicks to the adults by putting the juveniles in a cage in the coop with their own water and feed separate. After a couple weeks of the adults and juveniles seeing each other up close they get along when released with only the normal pecking order shenanigans. Having a large run helps and scattering the scratch so they don't have to "wait in line" also helps.
 

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