Raising Guinea Fowl 101

[perchie.girl]

what.... no more Guinea Gulag?

 

[duluthralphie]

I still have the "Guinea Gulag" but it is loaded with chicks,,,

 

[Kadn]

Ok, I read a few pages but I don't think I have the visual stamina to get through all 270 for an answer... although I live out in the country I have limited space my wife is ok with me building things on for the animals... so I'm trying to get creative with some new guineas I will be picking up later this week... I will only start out with two but I don't want them to free range as we have quite a few foxes and coyotes where I live. That being said I was thinking of housing them under my small back deck at night but am worried about their smell or how messy they might be... the back deck is very small but it is covered and obviously close enough to the house to help deter the predetors... any thoughts on this? I have a small patch of woods being the house(about an acre) and them fields surrounding every other side. The chicken coop/run already takes up most of the space my wife is ok with me using for my feather babies

 

[R2elk]

Ok, I read a few pages but I don't think I have the visual stamina to get through all 270 for an answer... although I live out in the country I have limited space my wife is ok with me building things on for the animals... so I'm trying to get creative with some new guineas I will be picking up later this week... I will only start out with two but I don't want them to free range as we have quite a few foxes and coyotes where I live. That being said I was thinking of housing them under my small back deck at night but am worried about their smell or how messy they might be... the back deck is very small but it is covered and obviously close enough to the house to help deter the predators... any thoughts on this? I have a small patch of woods being the house(about an acre) and then fields surrounding every other side. The chicken coop/run already takes up most of the space my wife is ok with me using for my feather babies

My recommendation is that you forget about getting guineas. I never recommend getting fewer than 10 guineas since they are a flock bird and do best in large numbers.

Guineas like to roost high. They don't want to live under your deck. It is an inappropriate place to keep guineas. In my opinion, guinea droppings are worse smelling than chicken or turkey droppings.

 

[CapricornFarm]

When i had baby guineas years ago, i always raise them in a brooder with several chicks. The chicks encourage them to eat by example, and when they are old enough to free range, the guineas will follow the chickens back to roost in the coop. I am getting baby guineas in mid July, and have my brooder all built. I was unable to get chicks from the hatchery i got the guineas from, but i am sure there must be someone around here that has a few chicks i can buy. I can hardly wait!

 

[MIChickandGuinea]

I have a dozen young guinea fowl that I have raised from hatchlings. They are 5 weeks old and well-feathered. They are starting to get that super-cool plumage that's black with white spots everywhere (they're pearl guineas), but their heads are still feathered. The run I have them in is low to the ground, because it was what I had available, so I don't know how their flying/roosting skills are, because I'm scared to let them out of their pen for fear that they'll fly away and never come back.

My goal for these birds is that they be free-ranging on our 80 acres, and ideally, that they would reproduce so that we end up with a healthy population of guineas for tick/pest control and for alerting/warning our chickens. Long-term, we have a very large, enclosed, covered wooden crate that will be a shelter for them in case they need to get out of harsh winter weather, or out of torrential rains. We will also keep large free-range poultry feeders and waterers out in the field where they can get to them in case forage isn't great. The majority of our property is mixed evergreen and hardwood forests, but there are hay fields, corn fields, and rotating seasonal plantings of grains, sugar beets, carrots, turnips, and other wildlife-sustaining crops, planted to support the deer, wild turkeys, and other critters that live here. I think and hope that it will be a successful type of habitat for free-ranging guineas.

So ... I need to transition them from the baby pen that they're in, to the covered crate that will hopefully become their home base. I had thought to put them in our very large fenced vegetable garden as home base. It's 100' long x 50' wide, and has a 6' fence. Half of the space is tilled and planted, the other is mowed grass. At the age they are now, would you expect that they would be able to fly out of the 6' tall fence? Also, I have heard mixed information about whether the garden is an OK place for them - I've heard that they are magnificent at eating garden pests like squash bugs, grubs, aphids, etc and that they don't destroy the vegetables themselves, but from other sources I've instead heard that they eat everything in their path like locusts.

Long post. Summary:
1) Can guineas this young be contained in a 6' fence? Or will they need a covered pen during their transition to their new, long-term location?
2) Will they be good citizens of the vegetable garden, or agents of destruction?
3) How long will they need to be managed and monitored in their new location before they're acclimated and mature enough to be self-managing?

 

[perchie.girl]

1 covered
2 depends
3 they will always need to be managed

Its a good idea to condition them to come to a call or noise for feeding time. Unless you plan to replenish your flock as they get picked off one by one.

By two weeks they can fly up and over a six foot fence... maybe not gracefully but they can do it. Guineas want to roost high so Trees will be their target roosting spot unless you can teach them to come in to a coop at night. I have had bob cats go right up a tree to do take out.

At this age I call them Bacon heads....

Even though Guineas are pretty wild as youngsters expect them to take a few days to explore the strange outside world and be comfortable with it.

And most importantly Dont fall into the trap of thinking of them as chickens....

deb

 

[MIChickandGuinea]

1 covered
2 depends
3 they will always need to be managed

Its a good idea to condition them to come to a call or noise for feeding time. Unless you plan to replenish your flock as they get picked off one by one.

By two weeks they can fly up and over a six foot fence... maybe not gracefully but they can do it. Guineas want to roost high so Trees will be their target roosting spot unless you can teach them to come in to a coop at night. I have had bob cats go right up a tree to do take out.

At this age I call them Bacon heads....

Even though Guineas are pretty wild as youngsters expect them to take a few days to explore the strange outside world and be comfortable with it.

And most importantly Dont fall into the trap of thinking of them as chickens....

deb

Thanks for your reply. Bacon-heads! Totally accurate :-D I am really new to this, so please excuse my possibly silly questions. I read as much as I could get my hands on about raising guineas before I committed to doing it, but the information out there is SO mixed and all I did was come away confused. So your answer of "depends" about the goofballs living in the garden ... can you give me more info on that, so I can weigh the pros and cons?

Also, you said they're wild as youngsters, and I have to agree with that!! Does that mean they're not so flighty and goofy as they mature? At what age would they be more open to interaction with people, and more likely to actually respond to a feeding call? At the moment, we call them "the Freaks" because of the freeeeeeeek freeeeeeek sound they make at this age, and because everything makes them flap and panic!!!!!

I keep hearing stories from friends about flocks of friendly, noisy, silly guineas tootling around their yards and gardens, and at the moment, I can't even see how The Freaks will turn into that! They are willing to eat treats from my hand through the wire of their pen, but when I open the pen for food and water, they run for their lives!!! And forget about holding them to get them used to being handled. They fuss and cry the whole time - they hate it!!! We've been trying to tame them since the day they came home as 2-day-old babies, and I can't see that we've made any progress.

 

[perchie.girl]

It takes about a year to really settle down. First adult spring is when their anarchy is evident... First mating season.... Oh they do get preety then the white on thier feaces gets a bluish hint.... Lots of chasing about and feather pulling amongst themselves till they pair off.

This is why having a flock of at least ten is a good idea because they are more likely to pick on each other...

They will condition to a flock call What ever you use very quickly... I used the same call as for my chickens at dinner time. Some people use a whisle or a bell or a clicker... But use the same one when you feed them every time.

This is helpful for all your poultry by the way. Especially if you need to round them up a bit early... but dont expect them to interact like chickens. They havent been domesticated as long.

deb

 

[guineapeeps]

I have a dozen young guinea fowl that I have raised from hatchlings. They are 5 weeks old and well-feathered. They are starting to get that super-cool plumage that's black with white spots everywhere (they're pearl guineas), but their heads are still feathered. The run I have them in is low to the ground, because it was what I had available, so I don't know how their flying/roosting skills are, because I'm scared to let them out of their pen for fear that they'll fly away and never come back.

My goal for these birds is that they be free-ranging on our 80 acres, and ideally, that they would reproduce so that we end up with a healthy population of guineas for tick/pest control and for alerting/warning our chickens. Long-term, we have a very large, enclosed, covered wooden crate that will be a shelter for them in case they need to get out of harsh winter weather, or out of torrential rains. We will also keep large free-range poultry feeders and waterers out in the field where they can get to them in case forage isn't great. The majority of our property is mixed evergreen and hardwood forests, but there are hay fields, corn fields, and rotating seasonal plantings of grains, sugar beets, carrots, turnips, and other wildlife-sustaining crops, planted to support the deer, wild turkeys, and other critters that live here. I think and hope that it will be a successful type of habitat for free-ranging guineas.

So ... I need to transition them from the baby pen that they're in, to the covered crate that will hopefully become their home base. I had thought to put them in our very large fenced vegetable garden as home base. It's 100' long x 50' wide, and has a 6' fence. Half of the space is tilled and planted, the other is mowed grass. At the age they are now, would you expect that they would be able to fly out of the 6' tall fence? Also, I have heard mixed information about whether the garden is an OK place for them - I've heard that they are magnificent at eating garden pests like squash bugs, grubs, aphids, etc and that they don't destroy the vegetables themselves, but from other sources I've instead heard that they eat everything in their path like locusts.

Long post. Summary:
1) Can guineas this young be contained in a 6' fence? Or will they need a covered pen during their transition to their new, long-term location?
2) Will they be good citizens of the vegetable garden, or agents of destruction?
3) How long will they need to be managed and monitored in their new location before they're acclimated and mature enough to be self-managing?

I agree with perchiegirl....they will easily fly up and out of the pen at their age and may end up roosting in your trees. If they roost outside at night, be prepared to lose some to predators like raccoon and owls....anything that can climb or fly at night is a serious threat as guineas are completely useless after dark!
Hopefully your guineas will be great for your garden. Mine would always move through my garden and pick off bugs and pests and never touch any of the plants. The worst thing they did was make a nest and lay eggs in my butternut squash. ( I tried to convince them to lay eggs in the potatoes to make it easier to gather breakfast, but they would't cooperate! )
As for isolating them in a new location to learn their new home, I would say at least 3 weeks and some people do 5-6 weeks. If you start them early with a treat and some sort of a call or sound with the treats, they will learn quickly to come into a coop when they hear it. Mine would come running from quite far off when they would hear a bag of millet and a "chick-chick-chick" call.
I also agree that they mellow with age. I noticed that my older guineas made a lot less noise and and created far less chaos than the younger ones.
I recently had to rehome my guineas because of a move and I really miss them a lot! I hope you enjoy yours as much as i enjoyed mine!