Pheasants or Guineas..?

[sara1226]

I have had chickens since May, and I absolutely love them. I would really like to try having another kind of fowl in the spring, but I don't know much about them or how difficult they are to take care of. We raised all of our chickens to be hand fed treats and we can easily pick them up and hold them. Is that possible with guineas or pheasants, or are they not easily handled? I originally wanted to have some turkeys too, until I read that they can easily get diseases like black head from chickens. Not sure I'd want to worry about that all the time. I already know guineas are noisy, but are there any other issues with them?

Just curious if anyone would be willing to tell me more about what it takes to care for them or which of these they prefer and why. Thanks everyone!!

 

[Free Spirit]

Pheasants and guineas are (like turkeys) considered game fowl. All gallinaceous birds such as these three are susceptible to the Blackhead disease. It can be managed though. With a regular worming schedule to treat the caecal worm you can reduce your chances. The effective wormer is products containing the active ingredient fenbendazole. Examples are a medicated feed such as Durvet Strike III mixed appropriately in their feed or scheduled individual oral doses of Safeguard equine paste, Safeguard liquid goat, or Panacur paste.

Plus free ranging or pasture rotation will also help with control. Depending on your area there are some flock owners that never encounter this disease and then some that do that control it through good management and/or a worming schedule.

Here is some info about controlling blackhead.
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1285/control-of-blackhead-disease/


I don't know what the best worming schedule would be (or even if you need to worry about it) and hopefully another forum member can provide that information.

 

[Saker1]

It depends what you want from them, pheasants are mainly ornamental birds, but do lay a small amount of eggs, Guinea fowl are good layers but are flighty and can be aggressive, we bought two Guinea fowl to go with our hens, they kept flying over the fence even with clipped wings, and escaping into the field . Guinea fowl are great guard dogs, as they will alert the other birds when there is danger.

 

[sara1226]

Would you say one is more costly to care for or are they all about the same? I appreciate your comments.

 

[Zoomie]

This is only my own experience, YMMV.

Guineas really enjoy exploring and will fly as far away as they can. They prefer to roost high in trees. This can leave them vulnerable to predators. Now, pheasants can act like this too... although pheasants usually roost lower down. Because of this, when I kept pheasants, I did not free-range them but kept them in an aviary. A really secure aviary. Everyone I knew who free-ranged guineas, lost them all, one by one until by fall they had none.

To me, not good. But again, YMMV. This could well depend on where you live and what local predators you have.

The guineas that I raised, and the pheasants that I raised, were different. The pheasants were a little tamer.... but this can vary by breed of pheasant. One of the tamest that I ever had in my incubator and hatched were the black pheasants. But, I found Lady Amherst pheasants to be fairly tame too.

These type of birds require a higher protein level in their feed... that made the feed a little more costly. If you tell your supplier it's for game birds they will bring out the heavy-duty stuff. Also, because I kept pheasants in an aviary, that meant I had to supply ALL their feed. They were not ranging for it themselves. So due to these factors, I would say gamebirds are more expensive to keep than chickens. As far as tameness goes, some of my Lady Amherst pheasants would come right up to me and eat out of my hand, which I personally consider to be really tame. On the other hand I was not picking them up and petting them... as I have done with chickens. But this is not to say that you, personally, might not have a real talent for taming pheasants. You might be able to have some so tame you can pick them up and pet them.

Both pheasants and guineas are really attractive birds, with lots of different colors. You can't go wrong there; no matter which one a person chooses, they are gorgeous.

 

[MeepBeep]

Be aware that pheasants may require permits or licensing as they are not considered 'fowl' or 'poultry' in many areas like guineas are...

 

[sara1226]

I guess I'm a little confused. If you free range the guineas but you have a coop for them, will they come back to the coop at night on their own or do they end up staying up in the trees? Not sure I'd want to deal with having to track them down and try to get them in every night. Yikes! Also... I know guineas are noisy (which I don't mind), but do pheasants make noise?

 

[MeepBeep]

In general if you get the guineas young and keep the cooped until they associate the coop with home they will come back every night... They are also very communally loyal amoung themselves so if you keep a few in the coop the ones outside won't go far... You can use this to your advantage to further condition them to return...