Space Requirements?

[PhDtoFarm]

I have a flock of chickens right now, but I'm interested in replacing a few chickens with guinea hens. Someone in the family has a chicken egg allergy (such bad luck!), but thus far guinea eggs are just fine.

My chickens aren't free range -- they are confined to a run that's about 140 square feet. Thus far, everything I've seen about guinea hens describes free ranging. Is this because guinea hens need to free range, or would they be okay in a run setup?

I've also seen that guinea hens are much louder than chickens. Are we talking about all-day vocalization? Are their calls just louder? More frequent? More unpleasant? Since we have neighbors (who are fine with chickens, but idk about guinea hens...), I don't want to annoy them too much.

Thanks for any info!

 

[chickenmadness7]

Honestly, there's NO WAY you can confine guineas in a run and not let them free range some during the day IMO. To do so would be cruel. Their space requirements are twice that of a chicken. I have five 12 week old keeps that I've raised and am giving 3 up to a wonderful home because of the incredible noise they make and the space requirements. To see them in the coop, you really get the idea of just how much space they need. With that said, they're really cool birds.

 

[PhDtoFarm]

Ah, too bad! Okay. Maybe in the future, then... but definitely not now. Thanks!

 

[blondi61189]

I have two guineas in with my girls, they are confined to the run during the day and coop at night. They have never free ranged and seem quite happy with current set up their run is 40x20 and has two guineas and twelve chickens in that particular coop. And yes guineas are much much loader then the chickens haha but they do make great alarm systems