Um, I'm thinking I'd rather have the ticks...

[ChickenAlgebra]

Are guineas loud. Errm, yes? More so under a year old, spring and females. But our boys can be loud just as much, so it's a relative point. The girls make more general noise, but a boy sets off the alarm (ALERT ALERT ALERT DANGER) and EVERY guinea starts it.

Are they the loudest out here? Nope. The kids win that by a mile. Then the peas. Then the guineas. Yes, louder than 3 roos.

Will your neighbors hear them? Ours do, one doesn't mind, across the road doesn't hear them from the house so they don't care. The other one HATES them, but they have guineas on both sides and would prefer to not have noisy birds around. But, right to farm, they moved here with the guineas and peas already here.

Solution to turkeys - freezer camp.

And for work note - I was on the phone with a woman who called in. ALL I could hear was perQUAT perQUAT perQUAT. Yup, they are loud but if you love 'em, you can't help it.

 

[bossynbella]

I remember when we went to pick up our first guineas. Like many of the rest of you I got them simply to control ticks. I saw an add for some pearl guinea keets at $10 each and planned to call the guy the next day, luckily my father in law said he had seen an add in the farm paper for $4 keets. I called the guy and he not only had plenty of keets to choose from he had the rarer colors, Lavenders, Coral blues, Opalines, Royal purples, Slates, Buff dundotts(though he didn't have any of the last two available as he was building up his breeding program) We drove about 45 mintues and ended up at a farm up on a bluff over looking the river. SO PRETTY! The guy who raised the guineas was an engineer at the University of Iowa and so was not hurting for money at all. He just raised these guineas because he like them. He had a HUGE Metal machine shed, this is where his breeding pens where (with covered outside areas attached) as soon as we walked in they started to yell. I can handle the BUCKWheat or however you want to spell it. These where yelling CHI CHI CHI CHI CHI! and everytime they would quiet down and he would start to talk again, to explain caring for the guineas, the ages or how to tell which keets where which colors they would start up again, he had some running loose as well mainly the lavenders and plain pearls and they seemed to be attracted to the noise of the others and would stand in the doorway yelling CHI CHI CHI CHI CHI! They where deffinatly a lot larger and louder then I had expected, but I still wanted them. So we bought ourselves 6 and my father in law 4. Two weeks later we went back and bought another 12 four more for my father in law and the rest for us. I call them my "Military chickens" because it looks like they have little army helmets on and when they do the CHI CHI thing it sounds like a machine gun to me. Last year we lost some as they ranged and ended up with only 3 girls and a boy. Then the three girls had a total of 7 clutches of eggs they hatched (they do great at hatching them but then we found you had to pen them up or the local skunk would find them at night) we lost two clutches that way, which is probably good cause with the 7 that lived we ended up with over 24 more guineas! We sold some and as fall turned to winter I noticed that the four we had started with that spring where gone (we had banded them and none of the ones we have now have bands) At the moment we have 12 guineas, 6 males and 5 females. 2 Opaline, 2 royal purple and the rest coral blue, I have a suspicion they are again laying somewhere in the ditches as they frequent the road most of the day, yelling at the cars as they go past. There are times they drive me nuts, and there are times I love them, and when I go outside and they start yelling CHI CHI CHI at me I just yell it right back and they kinda get this look like "WHAT? Oh she must be okay she talks guinea" and shut up. They also have learned if I am outside and they go into the garage/coop and start yelling they get shoved out " if your going to be inside be quiet" I say as I shoo them out to be noisy outside where it doesn't echo so much. I agree you either love these guys or you hate them, there is no in between and sometimes it goes day to day on what you are feeling for them! Good luck with the guineas, they really are worth it, especially when you see them with a whole bunch of little puff ball babies running around them!

 

[difranco]

I miss my Guineas

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Quote:
I have to totally agree with you....

 

[oldchickenlady]

Last year I considered getting guineas for tick control, but I knew they would be too loud for my DH to sleep. He works 12 hour nights at a very busy metropolitan emergency room, so sleep is MANDATORY for him. Instead I bought 12 chicks and they have done a fabulous job knocking the tick population down. Maybe I could borrow a chigger eating guinea for a few days and let it teach my hens how to catch chiggers...wouldn't that be cool?

 

[SassyKat6181]

I have dogs, horses, chickens, ducks, and barn cats on our 7 acre farm. I worry all the time about the ticks, since our fields are surrounded by woods and the deer come through often. We are always finding ticks on the cats and dogs (no matter what we put on them) and check my 3yr old son whenever he's been playing outdoors. I recently read an article in a magazine about raising Guineas for tick control. Since I am a member here on BYC I decided to scroll through the Guinea section. Came across this post first and started reading.

My first thought was "they are too noisy and not worth it", but after reading through other posts, seeing pictures and watching youtube videos, I have come to the conclusion that it is worth a try. Thank you everyone for putting in the pros and cons of having Guineas. This is why I love BYC.

 

[featherz]

Quote:
They are definitely noisy. But other than that, I really liked them. They are silly silly birds that are a lot of fun - if you can handle the noise, I think you should try it! At least in my area, they are easy to sell if you decide you really can't do it, but give it a shot. I am thinking of trying it again this year, but placing my coop farther away from my neighbors and keeping my fingers crossed. FWIW, my guineas always roosted in the coop and did not bother my chickens. They just liked to stare at them.

 

[bludini]

LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM! I even love it when they "tell on me". But I had to laugh at the OPs description: totally hillarious and perfectly accurate! Like someone else said, I wish I lived closer. I'd take them in a HEARTBEAT....or even faster...a perQUAT!

Sorry they're such a pain for you.

 

[robin416]

Quote:
I always warn people that Guineas are not chickens so don't expect them to behave like them. But if I had to choose between my chickens and my Guineas, I would choose the Guineas. Not just for the tick control though. They are entertaining and even though people see them as stupid when you take the time to watch and interact you will find they are quite intelligent. Chickens are not brave enough to run off fox, or cats or deer. We've watched the flock chase off every one of those four footed critters.

A rooster will not create a diversion to protect his hen, a male Guinea will.

We did not see brown dog ticks here last year but deer ticks did seem to be a problem.

Guineas are less apt to destroy flower beds or a veggie garden that is mature enough.

I have grass in my outside Guinea pen, there is none in any of my chicken pens.

 

[chloebetsychicks]

We started with 6 and then they hatched about 40 keets! We sold all but 4 of them. By the time there were 10 adults we knew some of them had to go. We sold 6 and are now down to 2 pairs. 4 of them seem to get along better, much less noisy and we won't be keeping any keets this time! I had terrific luck selling the adults on craigslist.