Raising Guinea Fowl 101

HI, A few days ago I hatched 2 white guinea fowl. these are my first guinea fowl so I have a couple of questions. First, with daily handling will they become tame? secondly I only have two but my neighbor lives a field away and he has a flock of pearl guinea fowl, If I were to free range my guineas when they were older, as there are only 2 will they leave me to live with this other flock? if this is the case, providing that I have a male and female I was thinking I would keep them in my old horse trailer with my phoenix bantam pair and my polish bantam hen until next year where I could breed up numbers so they could free range, would that be acceptable as I have heard they kill roosters.

thanks in advance Nick
Getting used to you and your hands is probably the best first step. It does help letting them eat from your hands. I have never had a guinea intentionally bite unless I am taking eggs away. Talk to them in a calm voice, slow movements. Use a key word with them. I use "ginny ginny ginny" when giving treats or feeding, always a white bucket, for example. This also teaches a "call word" when you want them to come.
If they are fully confined with chickens, they may become rooster aggressive. Its normally when guinea cock mature, the 1st year after hatch. Guinea hens, roosters consider them flock mates and will mate them! Not a good idea if the guinea cock sees that! then its all over for the rooster. They start by plucking feathers off his tail, and it will just get worse. Before I had good experience with guinea comingling, My wyandotte roo was losing tail feathers rapidly. I sat and watched several hours one day, and saw for myself what was happening. I also see them highly protective of the hen they choose as a mate, and will even take on a tom turkey.
Once I started free range daily this stopped. My 6 original guinea adults have their own coop now and roost every night. They still come to the "ginny" call and a white bucket, lol. Since I free range, mine aren't "tame" but my oldest girl tolerates me picking her up. When I had a large flock of guinea dumped off at my house last year, my adults ignored them. If they approached the guinea coop, they ran them off. I was able to catch and rehome them finally.
 
Guinea help..
About 2 months ago we got 4 guineas. They have been kept separate from our chicken flock until last night we decided to have them all together. This morning after we opened the coop the smallest of the guineas ran out and across the drive to the bushes. The other three are large enough and cannot squeeze through the fence.. We figured they would all stay together but this doesn't seem to be the case. Other than putting the small chicken wire along the bottom of the large run we have are there any suggestions as to A. Having them grow a bit quicker and B. Having them all stay in a group?
Thank you in advance.
 
Guinea help..
About 2 months ago we got 4 guineas. They have been kept separate from our chicken flock until last night we decided to have them all together. This morning after we opened the coop the smallest of the guineas ran out and across the drive to the bushes. The other three are large enough and cannot squeeze through the fence.. We figured they would all stay together but this doesn't seem to be the case. Other than putting the small chicken wire along the bottom of the large run we have are there any suggestions as to A. Having them grow a bit quicker and B. Having them all stay in a group?
Thank you in advance.
I would go ahead and add a foot high of chicken wire. Its the easiest solution and inexpensive. And if you choose to have broodies hatch in the future, it will prevent the little ones from getting lost and away from mom.
 
Neighbor has a lavender. Its the only one. Do they just "occur"? Or does a parent have to be lavender as well? I don't think hers was?

The parent does not have to be a lavender but somewhere in the background the recessive blue gene needed to be introduced to the flock. A male and female pearl gray pair with each having one dominant gray gene and one recessive blue gene could be expected to produce 25% pearl gray with these offspring having only the dominant gray gene, 50% pearl gray having one dominant gray gene and one recessive blue gene and 25% lavender with these having both color genes as the recessive blue. There are other possibilities but they do require the parent guineas to each have one recessive blue gene.

There have been cases of suspected color mutation where pure pearl gray parents after many years of producing only pearl gray offspring have suddenly produced a couple of lavenders. I say suspected since no one did a chromosome check on the parents to prove that they didn't have a recessive blue gene.
 

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