Would this work for a guinea coop?

[Yardmom]

We are considering hatching guinea eggs. I am wondering if the second story of the chicken coop would work for the guinea housing. The floor space is 12' × 16' The openings are about 10 feet from the ground and rafters above that. My plan would be to finish the brooding in an enclosure inside to home them to the area. Does anyone see any reasons this would not work? (Other than an inconvenience to me needing to use a ladder) I will try to get pictures soon to show the space.

 

[R2elk]

We are considering hatching guinea eggs. I am wonder if the second story of the chicken coop would work for the guinea housing. The floor space 8' × 16' The openings are about 10 feet from the ground and rafters above that. My plan would be to finish the brooding in an enclosure inside to home them to the area. Does anyone see any reasons this would not work? (Other than an inconvenience to me needing to use a ladder) I will try to get pictures soon to show the space.

Once the guineas are adults, there is no guarantee that you can get them to fly up and into their coop. If they had a ground level entrance it probably wouldn't be a problem.

 

[southwind00]

We are considering hatching guinea eggs. I am wonder if the second story of the chicken coop would work for the guinea housing. The floor space 8' × 16' The openings are about 10 feet from the ground and rafters above that. My plan would be to finish the brooding in an enclosure inside to home them to the area. Does anyone see any reasons this would not work? (Other than an inconvenience to me needing to use a ladder) I will try to get pictures soon to show the space.

Guineas are ground birds. Even though they can fly, they spend 99% of their time on the ground and getting them to fly in to yur 2nd story of your chicken coop would take a lot of training and most of the time they would end up just roasting in trees. Which is not good for their long term survival

 

[Yardmom]

Since I was at the coop, I snapped a couple outside pics, but it sounds like it is not likely for them to return to roost if they don't have a ground entrance.

 

[R2elk]

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Since I was at the coop, I snapped a couple outside pics, but it sounds like it is not likely for them to return to roost if they don't have a ground entrance.

You never know until you try. If it was mine, I would add a staircase as access to the upper door but I suspect they would be more likely to try to enter the lower section.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Guineas are ground birds. Even though they can fly, they spend 99% of their time on the ground and getting them to fly in to yur 2nd story of your chicken coop would take a lot of training and most of the time they would end up just roasting in trees. Which is not good for their long term survival

This could be really nice! You could cut a pop door into a lower area if you like…

 

[ColtHandorf]

Cool idea, but I'm not sure how well they'd take to it.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

View attachment 3042392View attachment 3042390
Since I was at the coop, I snapped a couple outside pics, but it sounds like it is not likely for them to return to roost if they don't have a ground entrance.

Another thought I had: could you open up the structure and have one big open space with rafter roosts for guineas and lower typical roosts for chickens? That could work if they will all free range together.

 

[Yardmom]

My guineas are almost grown and have had 2 nights in a row where they returned to their loft coop without assistance. We had a rough start when we first released them. They did not go back to the coop nor did they roost high in the trees. Instead they kept trying to roost on a sidways tree only 3 feet off the ground. We decided to do a reset and added a landing perch at the door way. The first ones released figured out the perch entrance right away. When we released all of them they had a couple nights when they wanted to go in with the chickens then tried the low branches before we guided them to the ground near their entrance. All but one flew up without a problem. The last one was carried up a few nights, but now is flying up with the rest. They didn't even try to go by the sideways branches the last two nights.

 

[southwind00]

No, Not really. Adult guineas spend 95% of their time on the ground because that is where their food is. Young guineas will exercise their wings some and fly around but you will need a ground entrance for them to use it consistently. And even that requires training for them to get use to.