Raising Guinea Fowl 101

[kenzier093]

have a young pup who will be just over a year old when I order my keets in the spring. Has anyone had experience training a lab mix puppy to respect chickens and guineas?

I had 4 boxers and when I first got chickens, my dogs ran up to the fence to see what they were since they never saw chickens before. I had a shocker fence the whole way around the wire fence, and every one of them got shocked and they don't go near them anymore.

 

[sunshineaviarie]

Amazing that others do not have Guineas that ruin plants, while they do not scratch like chickens, they tear off branches of my young trees, and peck at the stalks of new trees, creating deep punctures that are oozing. Also they try to make nests where my shrubs are and cause the shrubs to die off. They all got along with my chickens the first year and half, and there appeared some aggression around the time they started laying big 'ol nests of eggs. I am not sure what they actually do to the chickens, but after the attack, the first one died off and now the other one is looking like it might recover, but both were weak and not doing well. I do not see any wounds. A while back, when I caught up my guineas to cut their wings so they would not fly over the fence, they scratched me up pretty good flying up trying to get away from me, their nails on their claws are pretty sharp, so I can only imagine what harm they would inflict when purposely picking on another, like my chickens or dogs.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Guinea are not like a chicken, more a pheasant type breed. If you only keep a hen or 2 they will stay with a chicken flock. I have around 25 and the cocks are aggressive to my chicken roosters, period. They have separate housing, and comingle during the day. If a chicken rooster, or hen goes into the guinea coop, the guinea cocks will kill them. Guinea are housed at the opposite end of the property from the chickens now. Hens will also attack if they are brooding eggs. This is just my experience, I brood several species together, and although they grew up together, its still the same end result. I am on my 4th line of guinea cocks and its the same. They do not want chickens in their brooding area and will attack them. So far, ducks and geese seem to not be an issue.

 

[leslea]

Amazing that others do not have Guineas that ruin plants, while they do not scratch like chickens, they tear off branches of my young trees, and peck at the stalks of new trees, creating deep punctures that are oozing. Also they try to make nests where my shrubs are and cause the shrubs to die off. They all got along with my chickens the first year and half, and there appeared some aggression around the time they started laying big 'ol nests of eggs. I am not sure what they actually do to the chickens, but after the attack, the first one died off and now the other one is looking like it might recover, but both were weak and not doing well. I do not see any wounds. A while back, when I caught up my guineas to cut their wings so they would not fly over the fence, they scratched me up pretty good flying up trying to get away from me, their nails on their claws are pretty sharp, so I can only imagine what harm they would inflict when purposely picking on another, like my chickens or dogs.

I only have two guineas. They are bossy, def top of the pecking order. Now that the rooster is gone they don't hurt anyone. They attacked him once and once was enough for him. If I put out treats, they will try to drive off the lowest of the pecking order pullets. They are only 5 mo old, but so far they don't tear anything up. Maybe because they think they are chickens and they coop with them? If I left the two of them out all the time I feel like they would be gone by now. Once in awhile they fly on top of the house, but so far they have only flown over the fence a few times, and when they did, they just freaked out trying to get back in. They don't pay much attention to the plants. Maybe because our weed eater broke and they have plenty of weeds to nibble? When they were in the brooder, I picked nettles for them all the time. If they would stick to just nettles they could get as fat as turkeys here in the woods. I don't know if any of that info is helpful, but I guess everyone's set up is different.

 

[freejpony]

Has anyone had experience mixing flocks of Guineas? I have 3 older Guineas that I free range, and I just got some young ones that I want to release from their pen but I'm worried that the older ones might attack them. Do you think they will get along?

 

[MeepBeep]

My older Guineas mostly ignore the younger and newly introduced ones,

 

[Tikkijane]

Guinea are not like a chicken, more a pheasant type breed. If you only keep a hen or 2 they will stay with a chicken flock. I have around 25 and the cocks are aggressive to my chicken roosters, period. They have separate housing, and comingle during the day. If a chicken rooster, or hen goes into the guinea coop, the guinea cocks will kill them. Guinea are housed at the opposite end of the property from the chickens now. Hens will also attack if they are brooding eggs. This is just my experience, I brood several species together, and although they grew up together, its still the same end result. I am on my 4th line of guinea cocks and its the same. They do not want chickens in their brooding area and will attack them. So far, ducks and geese seem to not be an issue.

My flocks comingle and will even sleep together. I have never had a guinea cock kill or otherwise harm my roos {I'm down to 15; after having sent 4 to freezer camp a while ago}. At the moment, I have 8 adults; 5 of which are male. I've got 20 some keetagers in my grow-out and 2 hens on a nest in the wild which are on the last week of setting.

I have had issues with the cocks getting after each other. One of them stayed so beat up this summer we named him Andy {as in, Raggedy Andy}. Now that the girls are on the last nest of the season, everyone has all their feathers back.

 

[Tikkijane]

Has anyone had experience mixing flocks of Guineas? I have 3 older Guineas that I free range, and I just got some young ones that I want to release from their pen but I'm worried that the older ones might attack them. Do you think they will get along?

You can introduce like you would chickens. I have one keetager that was hatched and raised {bantam cochin "mama"} on the guinea side of the coop. She does just fine in there. They knew she was a baby and a few of the hens took turns keeping her war when mama went for a drink; before going out for the day. ♡♡♡

 

[potagergirl]

It is sad to say but I have seen first hand over the last two days what guineas will do to chickens.
Hubby and I have determined that ten out of our 15 guineas have taken to attacking our cochin hens because they are docile and
run when confronted. Where as the Polish crested jump and react as if they are going to fight.
Today alone I saw the guineas go after three different cochin hens which are a month older then the guineas. The last one I had
to stop because they had the poor girl in the brush with all guineas continuing to attack her. I really think if I had not stopped them
they might have killed her. In the end she ended up with a lot of broken feathers but as cochin go they are heavily feathered thank
goodness.
I dearly enjoyed my guineas up until yesterday when they lit after the smallest cochin female. I became suspicious and with todays
events we have decided the guineas will not remain with us. It's sad to know a perfectly wonderful animal can change so quickly.
The chickens are my babies though I will do anything to keep them safe. Thus tomorrow 15 lavender guineas will be taken to the
butcher.
The day will be sad, after all I have raised the guineas from a day old. They eat millet out of our hands and every day they come to
the porch to greet me when I walk outside. I'll miss them but I will know my chickens are safer without them here.

This was my first experience with guineas and it will probably be a long time if ever for me to decide if I will try again. Maybe I had to
many, maybe free range was not the best idea, a lot of maybes are going through my head. The one thing I do know is that I would
never discourage anyone from trying to raise guineas. Like I said they are wonderful animals and have always been good to us. Maybe
someone else will have better luck with guineas.

 

[leslea]

It is sad to say but I have seen first hand over the last two days what guineas will do to chickens.
Hubby and I have determined that ten out of our 15 guineas have taken to attacking our cochin hens because they are docile and
run when confronted. Where as the Polish crested jump and react as if they are going to fight.
Today alone I saw the guineas go after three different cochin hens which are a month older then the guineas. The last one I had
to stop because they had the poor girl in the brush with all guineas continuing to attack her. I really think if I had not stopped them
they might have killed her. In the end she ended up with a lot of broken feathers but as cochin go they are heavily feathered thank
goodness.
I dearly enjoyed my guineas up until yesterday when they lit after the smallest cochin female. I became suspicious and with todays
events we have decided the guineas will not remain with us. It's sad to know a perfectly wonderful animal can change so quickly.
The chickens are my babies though I will do anything to keep them safe. Thus tomorrow 15 lavender guineas will be taken to the
butcher.
The day will be sad, after all I have raised the guineas from a day old. They eat millet out of our hands and every day they come to
the porch to greet me when I walk outside. I'll miss them but I will know my chickens are safer without them here.

This was my first experience with guineas and it will probably be a long time if ever for me to decide if I will try again. Maybe I had to
many, maybe free range was not the best idea, a lot of maybes are going through my head. The one thing I do know is that I would
never discourage anyone from trying to raise guineas. Like I said they are wonderful animals and have always been good to us. Maybe
someone else will have better luck with guineas.

That is sad. Sorry to hear it.

I raised mine from a day old and they don't eat out of my hand. It's too bad you can't make it work, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I would do the same, if I couldn't get them to take to the trees.