Snakes, Toads

[kyle142]

I've heard guinea fowl will eat small snakes and stress out the big ones to make them leave,
Does this apply to poisonous snakes as well? I have Red Bellied black snakes and Eastern brown snakes.

How are they with cane toads?

 

[Cindiloohoo]

My Delaware chickens eat the local water mocassins. They have already gotten two this year

The guineas will too, but I don't recommend ranging guineas around chickens. In my personal experience, the guineas are vicious to the chickens.

 

[benjoycei]

Quote:
Those snakes are not poisonous. They are actually becoming rare to find.( according to DH)

 

[PeepsCA]

I don't have toads here, but I do have rattle snakes (or did). I have not seen more than one rattle snake a year (usually a baby hiding under something I've turned over) since I've had free ranging Guineas (almost 5 yrs now). My Guineas will attack the little snakes, then play keep away from each other with it until it's mutilated enough to eat, and they will circle around a large rattle snake raising kane and pecking it from every direction until they either kill it (the snake just coils up and tries to hide it's head) or they run it off to a distance far enough that appeases the Guineas. After being pecked into something resembling hamburger I don't think the snakes ever come back, lol. I can always tell when they've found one, they make a LOT of noise, so much noise my 5 dogs will start howling

 

[kyle142]

Thanks PeepsCA, That's comforting

Benjoycei, They are poisonous, The brown is the 2nd most deadly land snake in the world..My goat was killed by either a black or a brown snake and I see them quite regularly (luckly only browns once or twice a year, red bellies are a bit too common tho

)

Last question,
How are Guinea fowl with cane toads?

 

[kyle142]

Speaking of the buggars! I just went outside to check the chooks, let dog go to the toilet. While my rotti was being a clown I noticed a 2ft brown snake in the wood pile.
These guineas really need to hurry up and grow

Good thing it's comming up to winter, The snake should be hibernating there. Hopefully guinea fowl will be ready to greet it when it awakes

 

[perchie.girl]

Sounds like you are in the Southern hemisphere.... Austrailia?

I am in San Diego County in California. I personally have had Guineas and chickens both dispatch snakes and mice. But I live in the desert our toads are not cane toads. We have them in the south eastern states like Florida. I have also seen my flock of five guineas escort a Coyote off the property Pecking and honking the whole way.

I have done mixed flocks without problems.... maybe I am an exception... When your Keets are big enough to go out into the coop dont be in too much of a hurry to turn them loose. Otherwise you will loose them into the brush. Get a schedual established with feeding times and feed them something they cant resist to condition them to coming in at night.

My next flock of Guineas will be established for breeding so I wont be mixing them with the chickens.

 

[kyle142]

Thanks for the tips, Yeh I live in Australia.
These are actually my second try at guineas, the first ones escaped and the little buggars are so hard to catch and they surprised me when they flew!

Being much more careful now, once they are big enough not to be able to fit through chain wire fence I'll put them right next to the chooks so they can buddy up while being young, fingers crossed. We have really lovely chooks that are so tame, My mother sometimes get frustrated when she's weeding because they get in the way of the hand shovel.

You mentioned scheduled feeding's, I normally feed the chooks at the morning - Should I continue that and ALSO feed at night to lure the guineas back when they're older? Also, at what age should I stop having a consistent game bird feed available to them?

P.S, Thats amazing hearing about the coyote!

 

[philter4]

Hello Kyle, where do you live in Australia? I have spent a lot of time there collecting aquarium fish and photographing reptiles, in 1993 I spent about 3 months travelling up the north east coast of Cape York from Cairns to the tip of the peninsula, part of the trip was spent across the Torres Strait in southern New Guinea.

One thing about the snakes of Australia vs the snakes here in the U.S.A. they act very differently. Rattle snakes will coil up and rattle a warning and like others have stated, they will try to escape sometimes without even a strike, the Australian snakes are more related to cobras and they are much more agressive especially when being attacked. They don't usually coil and when they are cornered the strike and bite repeatedly. If they bite a guinea it will probably not survive the encounter. I am not sure how fast the brown snakes strike, I know it is much slower then a rattle snake but the venom is much stronger and works on the blood rather then the muscle tissue like a rattle snake's venom.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Save the night time feeding for the Guineas then.... The absolutely love white millet, almost like crak to them. Start getting them used to it as a treat now....
http://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/millet/

This site has lots of information but by all means dont use it as your sole source of information.

Guineas are great fliers mine used to fly up into the rocks behind my house looking for bugs then in the evening they would come flying about sixty feet in the air as a flock and land in the back yard. I have eighteen acres for them to explore. Beware if you have any roads nearby. I am two miles from paved road and two miles from the Mexican border.