Question on Guinea Fowl

[ChickeryChick]

My mom recalls when she was a kid that the neighbors had guinea fowl with their chickens. Mom thinks the guineas were for protecting the chickens.

Does anybody know if this is true? If so, what do they protect the chickens from? Coons and possums?

Thanks
ChickeryChick

 

[speckledhen]

They don't really protect anything. They just yell their heads off at everything and the chickens learn the danger cries and run. Guineas are eaten as much as chickens are by predators, though they are better at eating snakes than chickens tend to be. Guineas are LOUD. One thing to know is that sometimes, they are very aggressive to chickens and have been known to kill roosters, especially. I have had guineas. Had to rehome them. If you look up posts by me about guineas, you can read the story.

 

[Backswampcub]

My personal experience with guineas is that they will scream for danger and the chickens will respond accordingly. When I had them in my big mixed run. They would cause chaos chasing and attacking the chickens and turkey. Now that I have turned them out to roam. I have had no problems. We have these big black Ants that attack the Pecan Trees. The guineas have cut there population down. They also go out into the horse pasture and spread the manure looking for oats and corn. They have been a godsend in that way. I do not have to drag the pastures at this point because they spread it so well.

 

[Ducklove334]

we have a pair of guineas, (hoping for eggs and babies one day, how old are they to breed and lay?) and although they do like to beat the crap out of the turkeys when the turkeys get out of line, they don't bother the chickens much, they're better at spotting hawks than the darn ass chickens too!

I want to get more, I love listening to them.

 

[feathersgalore]

My guineas have saved our chickens more than once (of course not on purpose). They yell and the chickens run. They spot things the chickens totally miss. We had a mink in the coop one time. The guineas were throwing a fit and caused us to come running. The chickens were only standing around watching. Luckily we didn't lose a single bird.