We bought nine guinea keets this past May, traded two guineas to my mom for three chickens, our remaining seven have done far better than I expected them to. We bought the guineas because we had a terrible tick problem. The plan had always been to allow the guineas to free-range. There are no regulations in our "neighborhood" prohibiting guineas or any other creatures. The only thing our restrictive covenants say is that barns or "livestock" structures need to be more than 100 feet back from the road. Our next door neighbors obviously hate the guineas, though they won't admit it to us. We actually saw and heard them encouraging their big black lab to "bowl" the guineas over. The dog doesn't seem to care about the guineas at all when left on his own.
The birds (the seven guineas and seven chickens) have a fenced pen area, but two of the chickens have learned how to hop over the four foot fence, and the guineas fly out of the fence by climbing up onto their roof. We live in the woods, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, on just over six acres. Like I said before, the point of the guineas was to have something to keep the ticks under control. The guineas have no concept of "our yard" and go into the neighbor's yard regularly and eat the wild bird food that is either purposefully thrown on the ground by the neighbors or spilled by the wild birds. We wrangle the guineas back whenever we see or hear them in the neighbor's yard, but we're not always home and can't watch the birds all day if we are. I'm starting the get a little concerned that the neighbors will do something malicious in their efforts to get rid of our guineas - since their dog doesn't seem interested in learning to attack the birds. The guineas aren't hurting anything, other than eating the wild bird food and pooping....and being a little loud. These neighbors let their dogs run free over the whole "neighborhood" (our neighborhood is just two streets in the country). The neighbors on the other side of these neighbors (two houses down from us) don't mind the guineas at all, and the people across the street from us like the guineas and even put snacks out for them. The across the street folks said that the guineas aren't nearly as annoying as "those dogs" that run around all the time. So it's just the one couple that we have an issue with. (The neighbor's dogs are in our yard all the time. Our dogs have to be fenced in all the time because the neighbor's dogs have free run of our yard, peeing on everything, pooping wherever the please and even stealing our kindling.)
I've considered running a "strip" of wire fence in the woods between our yard and the evil neighbor's yard, but I'm not sure if it would actually prevent the birds from going into the neighbor's yard or if they would just figure out how to get around it. The property line on that side is probably close to 1,500 feet long, though the neighbor's part is only about a third of that length and the guineas only cross over into their yard in about a 200 foot strip. Being my father's daughter - I've considered jumping past being nice and going right into a feud with the neighbors, but the one neighbor is a friend/co-worker of my mother-in-law.
Any suggestions on how to keep the guineas out of the neighbor's yard? Would there be any obvious signs if the guineas ended up being poisoned (I seriously wouldn't put it past these people)? Though the guineas are annoying, I've grown to like them. They really seem to like being around people.
Thanks!
The birds (the seven guineas and seven chickens) have a fenced pen area, but two of the chickens have learned how to hop over the four foot fence, and the guineas fly out of the fence by climbing up onto their roof. We live in the woods, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, on just over six acres. Like I said before, the point of the guineas was to have something to keep the ticks under control. The guineas have no concept of "our yard" and go into the neighbor's yard regularly and eat the wild bird food that is either purposefully thrown on the ground by the neighbors or spilled by the wild birds. We wrangle the guineas back whenever we see or hear them in the neighbor's yard, but we're not always home and can't watch the birds all day if we are. I'm starting the get a little concerned that the neighbors will do something malicious in their efforts to get rid of our guineas - since their dog doesn't seem interested in learning to attack the birds. The guineas aren't hurting anything, other than eating the wild bird food and pooping....and being a little loud. These neighbors let their dogs run free over the whole "neighborhood" (our neighborhood is just two streets in the country). The neighbors on the other side of these neighbors (two houses down from us) don't mind the guineas at all, and the people across the street from us like the guineas and even put snacks out for them. The across the street folks said that the guineas aren't nearly as annoying as "those dogs" that run around all the time. So it's just the one couple that we have an issue with. (The neighbor's dogs are in our yard all the time. Our dogs have to be fenced in all the time because the neighbor's dogs have free run of our yard, peeing on everything, pooping wherever the please and even stealing our kindling.)
I've considered running a "strip" of wire fence in the woods between our yard and the evil neighbor's yard, but I'm not sure if it would actually prevent the birds from going into the neighbor's yard or if they would just figure out how to get around it. The property line on that side is probably close to 1,500 feet long, though the neighbor's part is only about a third of that length and the guineas only cross over into their yard in about a 200 foot strip. Being my father's daughter - I've considered jumping past being nice and going right into a feud with the neighbors, but the one neighbor is a friend/co-worker of my mother-in-law.
Any suggestions on how to keep the guineas out of the neighbor's yard? Would there be any obvious signs if the guineas ended up being poisoned (I seriously wouldn't put it past these people)? Though the guineas are annoying, I've grown to like them. They really seem to like being around people.
Thanks!
