Raising Guinea Fowl 101

[perchie.girl]

Plain old White sugar is an excellent blood stopper.....

deb

 

[duluthralphie]

Plain old White sugar is an excellent blood stopper.....

deb

Don't you worry the sugar will make the little buggars more hyper than they all ready are?


I would rather have them making weapons than picking up sticks a rocks to beat me with.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:

 

[BlueShadow]

We did some cleaning in the guinea coop today. Even though it was for their benefit, the guineas were NOT pleased about us messing with their home, and they particularly were displeased when we rearranged the furniture.

But the real trouble was when we did a bit of work in the chicken coop, and some of the chickens left through the open door. The chickens weren't causing any trouble, but you sure couldn't convince the guineas of that. Those gangsters are protective of their turf! (Which is the entire yard) When they saw the chickens, the whole gang came rushing over. I had to run to quick get between the guineas & chickens and chase the gangsters off, then herd the chickens back into their pen for safety. Our chickens have to stay in a fenced in yard for their protection... from guineas, not from predators (we don't have much trouble with daytime predators. Coons at night are a different story!)

 

[duluthralphie]

We did some cleaning in the guinea coop today. Even though it was for their benefit, the guineas were NOT pleased about us messing with their home, and they particularly were displeased when we rearranged the furniture.

But the real trouble was when we did a bit of work in the chicken coop, and some of the chickens left through the open door. The chickens weren't causing any trouble, but you sure couldn't convince the guineas of that. Those gangsters are protective of their turf! (Which is the entire yard) When they saw the chickens, the whole gang came rushing over. I had to run to quick get between the guineas & chickens and chase the gangsters off, then herd the chickens back into their pen for safety. Our chickens have to stay in a fenced in yard for their protection... from guineas, not from predators (we don't have much trouble with daytime predators. Coons at night are a different story!)

Wow, you have worse gangsters than I do, I have guineas and chickens together in 2 different coops.

I have 3 old guineas that live in the chicken coop, With the turkeys and the chickens, the one I caught trying to break in belongs to that gang.

Then I have 30 of them in Guinea Gulag with about 20 roosters. 19 of which are there to gain weight before going to visit the nice lady from the Asian Community in St Paul. The 20th rooster is a Yokohama that was just a bully to the other Yokohamas so he is doing life in Guinea Gulag just incase I need his sperm. However he is about 4 down the chain...so he might go with the nice lady from St Paul too....

My guineas normally just fight amongst themselves.

 

[BlueShadow]

I don't understand why my guineas bully the chickens so much, but they really do. I started this batch of birds in the summer of 2015 with a mixed batch of keets & chicks that were raised together. They stayed together through the winter. The guineas always bullied the chickens a bit, but when spring breeding season hit, the guineas became unbearable and I wanted some relief for my chickens. I like my guineas, but they were stressing my chickens and that is unacceptable.

The first thing I did was to take the windows out of the chicken coop. The windows are just high enough that the chickens don't fly out of them (they could if they tried) but the guineas have no trouble. So the guineas could let themselves in & out of the coop whenever they wanted. That was fine until I bought some pullets to add with the chickens and a guinea hen hatched out a nest of keets (https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/lavender-guinea-keets-2016)

With all the new birds and the bullying guineas something had to change, so we cleaned out the other half of the chicken coop to make a guinea coop on that side. It took several months of chasing the guineas to their side after dark before we convinced them to roost over there. And now the guineas aren't just bullies, they are downright aggressive to the chickens. I had hoped to let the chickens out to free range after my garden was done, like I normally do, but it didn't take long (like only 10 minutes) to realize that wouldn't work. As soon as the guineas noticed the chickens were out, they raced over and began chasing and harassing the chickens. If they caught the chicken, they pulled out feathers. And that is how it has been ever since. If the chickens are out, the guineas chase them and pull out feathers. Sometimes the guineas will fly into the chicken pen, that usually is okay because the guineas are more obsessed with figuring out how to get out than with bullying (you would think, they flew in, they should know how to fly out, but NOOoooo....)

I don't know if the guineas resent getting kicked out of the chicken coop, or if they are protective of the keets, or the keets don't know the chickens, or WHAT, but they are mean little gangsters, and they are out to get my chickens.

 

[duluthralphie]

I don't understand why my guineas bully the chickens so much, but they really do. I started this batch of birds in the summer of 2015 with a mixed batch of keets & chicks that were raised together. They stayed together through the winter. The guineas always bullied the chickens a bit, but when spring breeding season hit, the guineas became unbearable and I wanted some relief for my chickens. I like my guineas, but they were stressing my chickens and that is unacceptable.

The first thing I did was to take the windows out of the chicken coop. The windows are just high enough that the chickens don't fly out of them (they could if they tried) but the guineas have no trouble. So the guineas could let themselves in & out of the coop whenever they wanted. That was fine until I bought some pullets to add with the chickens and a guinea hen hatched out a nest of keets (https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/lavender-guinea-keets-2016)

With all the new birds and the bullying guineas something had to change, so we cleaned out the other half of the chicken coop to make a guinea coop on that side. It took several months of chasing the guineas to their side after dark before we convinced them to roost over there. And now the guineas aren't just bullies, they are downright aggressive to the chickens. I had hoped to let the chickens out to free range after my garden was done, like I normally do, but it didn't take long (like only 10 minutes) to realize that wouldn't work. As soon as the guineas noticed the chickens were out, they raced over and began chasing and harassing the chickens. If they caught the chicken, they pulled out feathers. And that is how it has been ever since. If the chickens are out, the guineas chase them and pull out feathers. Sometimes the guineas will fly into the chicken pen, that usually is okay because the guineas are more obsessed with figuring out how to get out than with bullying (you would think, they flew in, they should know how to fly out, but NOOoooo....)

I don't know if the guineas resent getting kicked out of the chicken coop, or if they are protective of the keets, or the keets don't know the chickens, or WHAT, but they are mean little gangsters, and they are out to get my chickens.

With Guineas you will never know either. It could be the color of your car that set them off. Or because the grass is green.

 

[BlueShadow]

Hah, that's true.

I guess my point is, I had read that the guineas would be more friendly toward chickens if they were raised together and that definitely was not the case for us.

 

[duluthralphie]

Mine are not raised together but are raised side by side. Until I decide to put them together as teens.

 

[R2elk]

Hah, that's true.

I guess my point is, I had read that the guineas would be more friendly toward chickens if they were raised together and that definitely was not the case for us.

Guineas that are raised with chickens typically are fine up until breeding season. The guineas that I currently have were not raised with chickens and have their own pen and coop. I can free range all my poultry in the same area without any problems. Because the guineas were not raised with chickens, they do not think of chickens as being guineas. The chickens are not afraid of the guineas because they have not been harassed by the guineas. They all go their own way without any interaction between each other. The guineas keep with the guineas and the chickens keep with the chickens. The other thing is that I keep a big enough flock of guineas that they can take out all their meanness on each other.

Unfortunately you can't unlearn the guineas about thinking they are the same as the chickens. The best solution if you really want to keep guineas without them terrorizing your chickens is to start over without raising the guineas with chickens. Give them their own area and have enough of them (minimum of 10) that they can satisfy their flock needs.

Good luck.