Trying Again

[BC_Farms]

We had 4 adult guineas that on their first day got picked off by hawks. We're going to pick up more keets, and keep a larger flock that will be housed in with the chickens. I'm not sure how free ranging will go again.

 

[robin416]

What kind of hawks? We have Red Tailed here and have only attempted once to take one of the Guineas years ago. No problems from them since.

I'm wondering if it was something else that got yours.

 

[BC_Farms]

We have Red Tailed Hawks here too. We found 4 piles of feathers in an open field so that was our best guess. It was during the middle of the day...from 10am-4pm while we were at work.

 

[robin416]

Chances are very high it was a four legged predator that got the birds. Guineas will shed under feathers when stressed a hawk snatching one and flying off won't leave that kind of evidence. It could have been a fox, we have one of those, coyotes (lots of those) and they will all hunt during the day. It could also have been dogs.

Having a decent size flock helps protect them, as a flock they will go after a predator and chase them off.

 

[BC_Farms]

Thanks Robin. We are thinking of having a flock of around 10-15.

DSO thinks the neighbors might have had something to do with it, but I think that's a little bit of a conspiracy theory. I guess the day before they disappeared they asked them if they were tasty.

I haven't seen any dogs that might cause problems, but it could have been a fox or a coyote.

We are also talking about keeping them in a chicken tractor kind of set up, and move it around to get rid of ticks. We have a huge tick problem here, and since DSO and 2 of the dogs have already had lyme, getting rid of ticks is a main priority. We had the dogs on Frontline last year and they still got ticks, and switched them to something else (Advantage I think) and so far so good.

 

[robin416]

Advantix would the the one you're trying now. Keep the barn cats away from the dogs since it is toxic to cats. With Frontline the tick has to bite the dog to die which creates its own set of issues like erlickiosis.

My adult flock is 15 birds. We watched them chase a fox off last year that tried to grab one of the Guineas so the greater the numbers the safer the flock.