Raising Guinea Fowl 101

[duluthralphie]

I am down to 5 of last years 20. They really have been getting knocked off on the road the last few days.

 

[guineapeeps]

What are Guinea survival rates like free range, I have 38 guineas, how many do you think will survive till next year???

Are they in a coop at night or do they roost in the trees? You'll have a higher survival rate if they are locked in a coop at night so owls and raccoons don't pick them off. It also depends on where you live and what predators are around. For me, some years are definitely worse than others depending on the crops around our house. This year we have corn all around our property, which is about 7 feet tall. Fox and coyote hide in it and pick my Guineas off, so this has been one of my worst years....I have lost 9 keets and 3 adults since spring. I normally only lose a few per year to predators, getting hit by cars, etc. but mine are locked in a coop at night and free range only during the day. Hopefully, you won't lose more than a few per year, but it's really hard to say since it depends on so many different factors.

 

[guineapeeps]

I am down to 5 of  last years 20.   They really have been getting knocked off on the road the last few days.

Wow....that's a pretty big loss! I've only had one Guinea that got hit by a farm truck, and I'm pretty sure he was not attempting to rob it! Despite being on a gravel road, we get a surprising amount of traffic, especially during harvest time. Quite a few of my Guineas have had close calls, and lucked out. I know people see them crossing the road but they never bother to slow down.....sometimes I think they actually try to run them over! It's very frustrating!

 

[duluthralphie]

Wow....that's a pretty big loss! I've only had one Guinea that got hit by a farm truck, and I'm pretty sure he was not attempting to rob it! Despite being on a gravel road, we get a surprising amount of traffic, especially during harvest time. Quite a few of my Guineas have had close calls, and lucked out. I know people see them crossing the road but they never bother to slow down.....sometimes I think they actually try to run them over! It's very frustrating!

I think the same thing, some people seem to aim for them.

My guineas are in the coop at night, I let them out around 8-9am depending on the day. I like it well after sunrise or dawn when I let them out. That 7-8 hour is prime hunting time for eagles around here.

I lose very few to anything other than cars. I have tried mowing right to the road, I have let the grass go long, it does not seem to matter. The weird thing is I have fields with long tall grass and tons of bugs and they go to the road...Idiot birds!!!

 

[Victoria-nola]

I lost one today, tried to do the rare Sunday Morning Brinks truck robbery and didn't see the Semi truck coming from the other direction.....



No one can claim they are the smartest bird in the coop. I am down to 6 free ranging adults now.

This is terrible. I would not like this.

My guess is that they just don't do that well with domestication in human environments. They probably are perfectly genius in their native niche in Africa.

I have been working on a new design for a guinea coop and it is nearing completion. I will share details with you when the keets move in.

 

[Victoria-nola]

I never become attached to a Guinea, it is like loving a pillow, you might like it but it can never love you back.

I have described my keet whose name is "Number One" because s/he was hatched first of the batch of eggs I had shipped in. #1 developed spraddle leg from being in the incubator too long, and I successfully treated it with vet-wrap. Then I left a bracelet of vet wrap on because I like knowing who one of them is.

Well, when the keets were in their first brooder, a 48"x30" x-large wire dog crate all armored with hardware cloth, it was on the porch, and most evenings when I would be finishing up chores I would hear a keet whistling, a single note just long and over and over again. I got in the habit of going over to the breeder and talking to the group, and realized finally that it was #1, so I was able to start saying goodnight to #1.

Since moving them to the interim brooder, a hoop-coop 7x12' armored with hardware cloth and out next to the toolshed, I haven't been hearing the whistle. Then the last couple nights I heard it, and this time I approached close enough to see who it was, and yes it was #1, head up in the air, beak parted vigorously. Who stopped whistling after I came over to say hello. I feel loved back.

I will say that one night I was driving down a super long, 2-lane highway in the desert of eastern California, and all these jackrabbits started popping up next to the road and hopping on to the road just as we'd pass by, seeming to "race" the car and sometimes playing chicken, while other jackrabbits ran alongside in the dirt, seeming to egg on the one in the road. I said to my friend that I reckoned I would wind up hitting one because they just kept doing it no matter how slow or fast I drove. And sure enough, I did hit one, which was a horrid thing. But, why did the jackrabbits play by the side of the road? Cars were infrequent on that stretch, one of my "short cuts" that often used to result in longer drive times. What were they, bored? Drawn to the headlights against their will? Why play on the road????

It's a mystery. Perhaps like the guineas. I sure do wish for mine not to do that when they start free-ranging.

 

[duluthralphie]

The thing is I get a "kick" out of watching the Guineas run and chase bugs. I find the way they run to be comical. I like the racket they make when things upset them or do not go as they think they should.

But they are weird little critters. They fight with each other to the death, never in a fair fight but everyone against the one they want dead. They refuse to go where the food is plentiful when they can hang by a road. I can't even begin to tell you how many times a week we chase them back from the road.

They are nuts the second they come out of the shell. A chick or turkey bonds with whatever they see, a Guinea sees a person and runs around like a crazed rat escaping a madman with an axe! I have opened the hatcher door and had them jump as soon as I slide it open an inch. They pile in the back. I have them in brooder pens and they run and bunch up when I feed or water them. Every other species run to see what treat they are getting, not guineas.

I sell most guineas I hatch, I keep the guineas locked up from February to late May so I can collect the eggs, they do ok locked up and I could keep them alive if I never let them run free. I have a large covered run for them (Guinea Gulag) it is 50 x60 feet and the cover is about 18ft tall in the middle. They have an enclosed building 12 ft ceilings, out door roosts and straw bales with a pick up topper on them. They would survive, but they would complain also.

However, I want them free. I use them for pest control. They simply decimate the wood ticks, box elder bugs and other bugs in the area. Nothing controls cabbage moths like guineas. Their job is to kill bugs. If they have to die because they are too stupid to do their jobs safely so be it. OSHA has not required me to put them in safety grab yet. ( wait a year or two and the government might make me).

To be honest, I cannot emotionally handle as many deaths as they suffer, so I distance my self from them. liking them but not becoming attached to them. I have 19 replacements ready to go. They were raised by a turkey hen and a partridge chanticleer. I have a Speckled Sussex sitting on eggs, but her lackadaisical attitude to egg setting may mean she is sitting on rotten eggs. She would rather take long sand baths with King George than sit on the eggs. She has finally taken to sitting on the eggs full time, but I think it is too late. If I had any keets to slip under her I would. but alas my incubators are on hiatus until Dec 13th.

A guinea raised by a hen or turkey is much calmer and adapts better to the mixed flocks I have. They are less afraid of the WWD and myself.

Oh well, hopefully I will have 20 alive in February when I lock them up again. I have about 80 keets I have hatched, some I will sell as started keets the rest I will keep to play Chicken with the trucks and cars. The question is how many should I keep. The way this summer is going I will need all of them.

 

[Tikkijane]

The thing is I get a "kick" out of watching the Guineas run and chase bugs. I find the way they run to be comical.  I like the racket they make when things upset them or do not go as they think they should. 

But they are weird little critters. They fight with each other to the death, never  in a fair fight but everyone against the one they want dead.   They refuse to go where the food is plentiful when they can hang by a road.   I can't even begin to tell you how many times a week we chase them back from the road.

They are nuts the second they come out of the shell.  A chick or turkey bonds with whatever they see, a Guinea sees a person and runs around like a crazed  rat escaping a madman with an axe! I have opened the hatcher door and had them jump as soon as I slide it open an inch. They pile in the back.   I have them in brooder pens and they run and bunch up when I feed or water them.   Every other species run to see what treat they are getting, not guineas.

I sell most guineas I hatch, I keep the guineas locked up from February to late May so I can collect the eggs, they do ok locked up and I could keep them alive if I never let them run free.  I have a large covered run for them (Guinea Gulag)  it is 50 x60 feet and the cover is about 18ft tall in the middle. They have an enclosed building 12 ft ceilings, out door roosts and straw bales with a pick up topper on them.  They would survive, but they would complain also.

However, I want them free. I use them for pest control. They simply decimate the wood ticks, box elder bugs and other bugs in the area. Nothing controls cabbage moths like guineas. Their job is to kill bugs.  If they have to die because they are too stupid to do their jobs safely so be it. OSHA has not required me to put them in safety grab yet.  ( wait a year or two and the government might make me).

To be honest, I cannot emotionally handle as many deaths as they suffer, so I distance my self from them. liking them but not becoming attached to them. I have 19 replacements ready to  go. They were raised by a turkey hen and a partridge chanticleer. I have a Speckled Sussex sitting on eggs, but her lackadaisical attitude to egg setting may mean she is sitting on rotten eggs.  She would rather take long sand baths with King George than sit on the eggs. She has finally taken to sitting on the eggs full time, but I think it is too late. If  I had any keets to slip under her I would. but alas my incubators are on hiatus until Dec 13th.

A guinea raised by a hen or turkey is much calmer and adapts better to the mixed flocks I have. They are less afraid of the WWD and myself.

Oh well, hopefully I will have 20 alive in February when I lock them up again.  I have about 80 keets I have hatched, some I will sell as started keets the rest I will keep to play Chicken with the trucks and cars.  The question is how many should I keep.  The way this summer is going I will need all of them.

Me too. I'll never not have them. I usually add keets every other year. Next year is the time, unless I manage to hatch out some keets this year. Mine hit the road, but most are in with the chickens at night. Their biggest predator here has been fox, but we've heard coyotes off and on all summer. I think one of them got one of my cats....

 

[guineapeeps]

I think the same thing, some people seem to aim for them.

My guineas are in the coop at night, I let them out around 8-9am depending on the day. I like it well after sunrise or dawn when I let them out. That 7-8 hour is prime hunting time for eagles around here.

I lose very few to anything other than cars.  I have tried mowing right to the road, I have let the grass go long, it does not seem to matter. The weird  thing is I have fields with long tall grass and tons of bugs and they go to the road...Idiot birds!!!

I mostly lose mine to fox or coyote hiding in the corn fields around my house. We are surrounded by it on all 4 sides but my Guineas, like yours, seem to think the grass and corn are greener on the other side of the road. We have about 5 acres that is grass/pasture. It, too, has lots of bugs for them to eat, but when the grass is long, they choose not to spend time there looking for food. Lately I've been mowing the pasture down short (about the length of the grass in our yard) and this has made a big difference on how much time they spend there. Now, they spend a good portion of the time out in the pasture rather than in the corn. (Although sometimes I think they veer into the corn just to call in the fox to eat them.....people say the females say buck-wheat but I think mine are really calling out to the predators, saying "break-fast, lunch-time, din-ner!").

 

[guineapeeps]

The thing is I get a "kick" out of watching the Guineas run and chase bugs. I find the way they run to be comical.  I like the racket they make when things upset them or do not go as they think they should. 

But they are weird little critters. They fight with each other to the death, never  in a fair fight but everyone against the one they want dead.   They refuse to go where the food is plentiful when they can hang by a road.   I can't even begin to tell you how many times a week we chase them back from the road.

They are nuts the second they come out of the shell.  A chick or turkey bonds with whatever they see, a Guinea sees a person and runs around like a crazed  rat escaping a madman with an axe! I have opened the hatcher door and had them jump as soon as I slide it open an inch. They pile in the back.   I have them in brooder pens and they run and bunch up when I feed or water them.   Every other species run to see what treat they are getting, not guineas.

I sell most guineas I hatch, I keep the guineas locked up from February to late May so I can collect the eggs, they do ok locked up and I could keep them alive if I never let them run free.  I have a large covered run for them (Guinea Gulag)  it is 50 x60 feet and the cover is about 18ft tall in the middle. They have an enclosed building 12 ft ceilings, out door roosts and straw bales with a pick up topper on them.  They would survive, but they would complain also.

However, I want them free. I use them for pest control. They simply decimate the wood ticks, box elder bugs and other bugs in the area. Nothing controls cabbage moths like guineas. Their job is to kill bugs.  If they have to die because they are too stupid to do their jobs safely so be it. OSHA has not required me to put them in safety grab yet.  ( wait a year or two and the government might make me).

To be honest, I cannot emotionally handle as many deaths as they suffer, so I distance my self from them. liking them but not becoming attached to them. I have 19 replacements ready to  go. They were raised by a turkey hen and a partridge chanticleer. I have a Speckled Sussex sitting on eggs, but her lackadaisical attitude to egg setting may mean she is sitting on rotten eggs.  She would rather take long sand baths with King George than sit on the eggs. She has finally taken to sitting on the eggs full time, but I think it is too late. If  I had any keets to slip under her I would. but alas my incubators are on hiatus until Dec 13th.

A guinea raised by a hen or turkey is much calmer and adapts better to the mixed flocks I have. They are less afraid of the WWD and myself.

Oh well, hopefully I will have 20 alive in February when I lock them up again.  I have about 80 keets I have hatched, some I will sell as started keets the rest I will keep to play Chicken with the trucks and cars.  The question is how many should I keep.  The way this summer is going I will need all of them.

I agree that they are certainly freakishly wild birds, even if handled quite a bit. However, I will occasionally have some that are much more tame than the others. I recently sold (9) 5 week old keets that were the first to hatch this year (their mothers had started laying on more eggs and the keets would only sit on top of the hens who were sitting on the eggs, which was comical to see). I almost wished I would have kept them because they were much more tame than other keets that I've had. If I brought millet out and called them, they would come running. I'm not sure what makes some more wild than others, as I do the same thing with all of them!