Why own guineas

Just started with Guinea , got some eggs an hatch them out myself, only got 14 out of 30 eggs. About 6 weeks old now , got 60 more eggs now hoping they hatch out ok. This is going to be a hobby for me on my 13 acre farm. We have 29 guineas on our rural homestead.

We have no neighbors within a mile, so the free-ranging is no problem. The first week we had them, we found 3 dead snakes in our yards, so they do help with snake problems. I can call them when I have scraps and the original 9 I bought will come running to me for the treats. The dogs often chase them. We have an 8 foot wide by 24 foot long old cotton trailer that we converted to a pen—covered it with a tarp for winter, and they come and go as they please.

Barn owls can be a problem if the birds insist on roosting on top of the pen instead of in it. They picked that spot over many spots available which tells me they are not quite as stupid as you might believe. They ARE loud, but I love them. All our neighbors well-those about miles away LOL had grasshopper and tick problems this past summer, and we saw only two ticks on our 5 dogs all summer, and you were hard-pressed to find any grasshoppers after May.

Last year, the grasshoppers decimated all our trees, my entire garden which is fairly large and were solid in our grass yards. This past summer, they were a non-issue. If you have grasshoppers, ticks, or snakes, I can assure you guineas are a good organic choice. But yes, they are LOUD and they roam if you allow them to. Hope this helps some of you decide. Should I keep each male in a separate shelter or in the same.

They are good watch dog for my house, no one attempts entering my premises without the door bell. No keep them all together and they should figure out who goes where. I have 2 male and female. They stay in the chicken coop at night but free range daily.

Best guard dogs ever. If you pay attention to them they will keep things in order and help you maintain good health and reliable feeding times with the other animals. Their eggs are super delicious. BUT when she starts laying thay can lay up to 50 eggs in one nest before deciding to lay to hatch.

I have a small shed that is raised above ground about 1foot. Do you think it would be a good option to let our guineas roost under it at night? Currently we put them in with hens. We have to let them in and out daily. I am hoping for a spot they can come and go more without me. We are new to guineas. Thank you for this one!!

I have every intention of getting a few Guineas next spring after we have settled into our new little farm. I have been a small scare homesteader for nearly 7 years now and I love every second of it! I am so glad there are like minded individuals out there. We bought keets in the Spring, raised them inside in the brooder, and put them in the barn for weeks before letting them out.

We slowly let a couple out for a little while each day, until they were all out, all day long. We trained them to come back to the barn to roost at night with food. They were doing a great job, until recently they refused to go up into the barn at night. Does anyone have any ideas as to how to get them back into the barn at night? My male and female are a year old. They were raised in little backyard coop in winter so. Texas …then as they matured, in sprig, and grewwarm, went up in tree. Now, November.

Want to get Her and Male into little coop as cold winter coming. But they want to go I tree. Now I have to figure out how I get female home from other yard…make comes home every night to his tree. Male comes home nightly from neighbors yard to eat and roost in their tree.

Female will not return home to eat, drink, will not respond… been 4 days now. What do I do? I do not want eggs to hatch.

I want her safely home. And want both of them to start going into their little warm, heat lit coop. Instead of tree. She has 10 eggs at neighbors she is sitting on. I thought she was thru with egg season after oct? This makes about total eggs this season. I am Michael and count myself fortunate that I found this site. I have a 26ish foot 5th wheel camper frame and am going to build the coop on it. It is my intention to use the area above the 5th wheel for their roost.

If I do that will give them another 4ish feet of height. In short I have declared war on squash bugs and everything that eats my garden plants.

I am planning on getting guinea fowl when we purchase land, if anything else, just for their usefulness at eating ticks. But thanks for the reminder of some of the negatives about them too! I love your blog! Thanks for joining me! This post is hilarious! It kind of makes me wonder what guineas have in the pro column. I guess the bug eating is a big one!

I have a neighbor who keeps guineas, and they do raise a ruckus but I like the sounds of animals around. THEY are spoiled, obnoxious sheep who baaa up a storm anytime they see a person they think they can convince to provide some corn. Bugs are a big pro for the guineas, but I have found the chickens do a pretty good job on their own. Our goats are the same way- if they see a human it must be time to eat :.

Try coming near my pig pen! So in not too many more months, little piglets all over the place, haha But back to the noise, you never heard such screaming coming from them when I go out twice a day to give corn soaked in water with a protein concentrate. I know it is the protein concentrate they love, because once I made the mistake of buying it in pellet form, and darned if those pigs did not dump all the corn out, and eat every single concentrate pellet. I also have a hopper with straight corn in it, and the pigs will nibble a little bit on it, but definitely prefer the corn mixed with the sweet I am guessing concentrate.

So is life here at Country Grown Farms. Makes me laugh. I have guineas and roosters, but nothing bothers me more than my sheep. Their baaas are so pitiful when they see me. The want their grain fix and get louder and louder until they get it. Good thing we are on 30 acres and its roads on all 4 sides.

Thanks for sharing on Tuesdays With a Twist. Yes, they are loud, like alarms, our neighbors had some and whenever we went for a walk they would let everyone know we were there. Have a blessed and Merry Christmas. It took me 31 years of marriage to convince my husband that we really needed them…. Where in South Arkansas do you recommend buying guineas Anita? My husband and I own 5 acres and have been researching raising guineas as pest control for our large garden.

We live in southwest MO and ordered ours from Pennsylvania. We got the French Variety that get heavier because we wanted to try the meat.

I had read that it taste similar to pheasant. It does and the ones I cooked at Thanksgiving were out of this world delicious. I had made 5 meats; reg roasted turkey, smoked turkey, smoked quail, pork tenderloin and roasted guinea. Everyones favorite hands down was the guinea. Our flock has dwindled down to 4, because they do roam; even with 40 acres they still go to the neighbors during breeding season. I have never been lucky enough yet to have them show back up with babies; if they do I will capture them and raise them because guineas are horrible mothers.

We had a huge flock of guineas when I grew up. So huge that we had to thin it out. The meat — problem. Holy Smokes! We found out that after the age of 7 weeks — no matter how long you stew it — it was like rubber! You would chew and chew and chew and finally just give up! I have heard that Guineas are very loud. Never been interested in raising them. Thanks for sharing with the HomeAcre Hop!

Ha ha. We always had them around wild where I grew up in Africa. Never had them as pets, but their sound brings back wonderful memories. I love it!! Course, they never stayed by our house for long ;-. We have guinea fowl, about 20, primarily to rid us of ticks. The guineas are successful in bug control.

I am glad I read this! I have always considered getting guinea hens as tick eaters but not any longer. Thanks for the info! My guineas are wonderful and we enjoy them as well as our neghbor does.

Spring is a little more busy but our flock is fantastic. Get them. Young ones. You will not be disappointed. Its an honest list for sure. Around here we refer to them as a gang of thugs.. I do still love my guineas. They eat from my hand.

I appreciate the hawk warning sounds. Between the guineas and the roosters my hens usually know when danger is near. My guineas dont roam. We have a few acres and they have been content here. They have been over the fence where they wear a bald spot in the grass because the stupidity factor wont allow them the knowledge of how to return from whence they came. They keep chasing the new ones into the woods.

A friend told me to enclose them all together and let them sort it out but they are so brutal and they gang up. How did you keep them from running off?

I have 5 guineas and live on 7 acres. After 2 nights of them being gone we found them down the road. Is there any way to keep them on our property without fencing the entire property? Thank you very much for any help. Guineas are hard to contain. Even with fencing they would just fly over. The key is to start with keets and keep them in their coop for the first weeks before letting them out so that they know this is their home.

They will roam during the day but should come home to roost. Put them in an outside enclosure for several weeks. Then take one bird and let it out of the enclosure. After a week, let out a second bird. If the two birds stay close to the rest, you can let them all out after a week. Worked well for us. And I will also attest that they are the stupidest animals on the planet. They are also the funniest. When I had about ten, they were all pearls, one day I went out to the front yard and I counted 20!

Come to find out a neighbor about one mile down the road had acquired some guineas and for some reason they did not like the accommodations and left after a few days and somehow found my flock and joined them.

As of the first night they were going to the coop with mine. They were all pearls so no way to know which belonged to whom. Told my neighbors I had them and they were surprised but said I could keep them.

Well all birds are territorial when they have eggs. Also thinking that they are stupid is an opinion. And of course if you have a male and femal they are going to breed. I just hatched five Guinea fowls and they are adorable! Well they are also going to be bullies when they have eggs too. For at least 2 full weeks; when you start letting them out only let them out for 2 hours before roosting time.

Then call them back in with feed. This trains them both to come to your call for a treat and to come home to roost. We learned the hard way of course; and have had tthe heartbreaking experience of losing half of our flock 16!!! It has taken 3 years for the other 16 to dwindle down to 8 and now 4; hoping the other 4 are on a nest somewhere….

I remember growing up with guineas. Ugh, they were terrible. We had a problem with wild dogs, and we got the guineas to be an alarm- to keep our rabbits safe. We also set traps for the dog, and a guinea ended up getting out and into the trap- it ended up with only one leg, but if you can believe it, that damned bird hopped around for an entire summer.

The only thing I remember liking about them were the feathers they dropped. Loved your article! I agree completely with your take on guinea fowl. They have been a proverbial pain in the butt. I do not agree with the author of Gardening With Guineas whose book convinced me that they would be a wonderful bird to add to our new life on the land. She touted how gentle they were in her garden.

They have practically uprooted saplings, grapevines, rose bushes and more by digging their dusting pits in the easiest soil they could find on my property. And bullying was the latest eye opener for me. I had wondered for months why so many of my poor hens were losing feathers. I figured they were doing this to themselves overnight or fighting in the hen-house overnight. I finally saw the dark-side of Guineas in the hen-yard over this winter. I only have two left out of the original 15 and would not be sorry to see them go.

Thanks for the entertaining and insightful read! We are house-sitters in Australia. We were looking after a property that had ducks, chickens and a dog. They were never any trouble and as the dog was getting fairly deaf, it was great to have the guinea fowl alert us of visitors or predators. We found a dead poisonous snake near the residence, which we think the guinea fowl disposed of, as it had numerous little holes in it, which appeared to have been caused by their beaks.

The water dragons did that from time to time. Those guinea fowl roosted in the trees at night. Later we were looking after another property that was infested with ticks. How we dealt with them, is another story! There had been bad flooding the year before.

As we regularly look after the property, we suggested to the owners that guinea fowl may help. They have guinea fowl now as well as chickens and the tick problem is almost non existent.

We also saw a fox slinking off one day, which we attribute to the guinea fowl creating a ruckus. The guinea fowl are never locked up they roost on a perch, that runs along the top of the chicken yard and never show any aggression toward the chickens.

The guinea fowl came with rings around their legs, which occasionally they got their claws caught in, causing them to limp badly. We eventually caught them all with the help of a fishing net and removed the rings. Not sure, but suspect that is caused by stress.

Love this! I miss them sometimes. We have 9 acres of land and the guineas have chosen my bedroom window sill as their fav place to roost, leaving me wide awake until I get fed up enough of the squealing to go outside And flush them off. Any suggestions on how to prevent them from roosting there and in one of the thousands of trees instead?????

The males have longer and larger wattles on the sides of their faces. They also have a little bit different call. The female has a 2-syllable call where as the males have a monosyllabic call, both calls are repeated over and over. We had 2 guineas My female got hit by a car last night and will be missed. I was hoping she would make it after being dropped by a hawk from 20 ft a couple of months ago. She died during the night.

The male is so sad and clucking up a storm. I hear they mate for life. I will get another female and hope they co exist. They were beginning to get friendly after almost a year and did their job well in keeping grasshoppers and every bug away on 7 acres by our house and 10 acres across the road. I tried to keep them on our side but the male would follow her.

How sad! Best of luck! I could use some help. I have raised guineas on a farm for many yrs. You are correct about them. I have seen all of it 1 time or another. I moved 2 yrs ago. I now own only 2 acres. Last yr I purchased 15 guineas. Raised them together, in a small pen. There were 11 this spring. I let them out, to roam. The neighbors seem to be fascinated by their antics.

Telling me about the things they do. Now my problem is, they are dying. They go across the road. I have had 1 hit on the road. They leave my property, and go to the neighbors lawn.

In the last 10 days, I have had 6 die. They come back, and I find them dead, in the pen, or near the garden. No feathers missing. I do see them chasing each other occasionally, Will they kill each other? I hate to think some 1 may be putting something out to get rid of them.

When I raised them in the past, I never found dead 1s. Some were taken at nite by owl or raccoons. But they roosted in trees. Is there anything u r aware of that they may die of? They r only 1 yr old. Hey, Gene, I am no guinea expert, but perhaps they have been exposed to a toxin when they are out and about.

When I was a child, our dog ate part of a large dead grasshopper that was in the yard a day after my dad sprayed insecticide. She very nearly died and it was a big vet bill. Perhaps they are eating something exposed to pesticide or herbicide??? Well, folks each of us are different and so are our experiences. I have owned Pearl, Pied and Lavender Guineas with chickens for over ten years now and with complete joy.

Their gregarious nature is lovely in the daily hum-dum of farm life. As for bullying it is just like kids at school. Yah git outta them whatcha put in…bullying has NEVER happened on my farm and the chickens even small bantums co-exist and even roost with them at night.

I have mine trained and have for years to never sleep out in the woods or nest there either. I watch the behavior of the males that help guard the nesting females and the gather the eggs putting them in an incubator so the hens can rest, roam and enjoy their much appreciated bug eating. A chicken will destroy a garden but a guinea takes the bugs and moves on to another area.

I trained mine to come when I call them and stay out of the woods and off the asphalt out front in the road!! It is a matter of patience and respect for the breed of animal and the willingness to educate oneself on how to work with them.

Guineas will teach you patience, detachment, the gift of allowing and the circle of life and love. Just takes a little patience and some millet along with a willing can-do attitude….

Not a thing stupid about that, I say! I hate all the negativity about them and I feel you are right about teaching them. I have recently added two to our chickens and yes, they are very mean to my bantams and my big girls but they have taken up with my Barred Rock and just love him to pieces. Go figure???? I am just praying they will all get along very soon and they will stop attacking my little tiny bantams as they could kill them with one peck on the head.

I have to chase the guineas to get them to stop and they are very sneaky and will try another route to get to them. They really are smart as I have one that will let me put him up at night as he has been hurt on his foot by a dog and I have been doctoring him and nurturing him so he is kind of use to me so I went back to where I got him and got the other one as the renters left him when they moved.

They are unbelievably strong! I do love them and think they are hilarious and love to watch them, too! I love my guinies too, and they are not mean. I have food and water in guinea house all the time.

I close them up at night and let them out in the morning. When I go outside! I wonder where the guinies are, then they great me. I can only keep two because of room. I now have seven. My son is in Afginastan, They sure help take my mind off that worry. I hope to always have guinies. That is a lovely rebuttal to such a judgmental piece about guineas. We totally love our 16 guineas. They co-exist peacefully with our 20 chickens and 1 rooster.

They were hand raised from one-day old, kept in a brooder in our living room, then when big enough, transferred to the other side of the chicken coop where they could grow up seeing our chickens on the other side. It was winter, so all the birds were pretty much confined to the coop and got used to being with one another. Once I allowed them to co-mingle, there were no incidents at all.

My guineas do squawk sometimes, but they stop pretty quickly when the threat is over. Mostly they are quiet. They make the most exquisite trilling sounds when they are laying an egg or when they go into the coop at night. So incredibly sweet.

They are not dumb birds at all. They are just wild birds doing what their wiring tells them. Is that a reason to call them dumb?

Hopefully not. In Texas we have varmits and lots of them, but seldom which I am very grateful for do we have snakes around our home because of our cats and our birds.

We have 5 dogs and 6 — 9 barn cats, acording to how many show up for dinner. We have geese, ducks, chickens, turkeys, doves, mini donkeys, and guineas. The fox love our birds and guineas. We usually lose several birds each year to them. It used to be mostly guineas but that was before we started closing them in the chicken house at night. For several years now they roost in with the chickens and ducks.

Not sure if I have them trained or other way around, never really thought about it. Usually the last stragglers of my guineas show up as I finish feeding, but that is why I keep calling as I do other chores. I feed the chickens, ducks, and guineas in the chicken house in the evening to promote them going in at night. Started doing it with the smaller birds from the time they were big enough to be let out of their brooding pens.

I never have problems with where they roost. If one comes in after I have closed up, I usually open the door again to let them in or if they are too late, they will roost up the tree in the turkey pen. The turkeys now go to their own pen to sleep and the geese are out all night, but usually stay close to the back yard fence where the dogs are.

At night the geese are our alarms and during the day the guineas sound alarm with them. I live in the country to enjoy nature. Nature is not quiet and not neat. Nature is noisey, very messy, and most of the time I love it. My guineas have never pecked at our car or truck. They have never attacked any person. Far from stupid, my guineas surrounded a young skunk that came out before dusk and chased it from the yard. The larger roosters bully more than any one else, but it is what they do.

Last years guineas have a couple bantum roosters that they were in the brooder with, that occasionally still hang out with them. A neighbor just down the road has peacocks that occasionally pay us an unexpected visit. I also find if I leave the chicken house closed up until noon or so, that I can gather the eggs from most of the birds including the guineas after I open them out. When it comes to eating the bird, think of them as a plump chicken, with a bit more flavour, slightly gamier — closer to pheasant — which makes them a popular delicacy meat in the US and Europe.

The average, full-grown adult guinea fowl weighs 1. Once processed — the same as for chicken — it will provide enough to feed two people. Its tasty dark meat is lean, low in cholesterol and rich in essential fatty acids. You can use almost any chicken recipe with guinea fowl. The older the bird is, the more you risk the lean meat drying out during cooking.

Roasting or casserole are the best options; if you go for a roast, it will need regular basting or you can cover it with bacon to maintain moisture. Guinea fowl live in family groups and pair up for life, so you have the delight of watching a growing family. There are lots of different breeds of guinea fowl around the world, but in NZ it appears to be confined to just the one Numida meleagris in three basic colours, pearl, white and lavender.

The lavender has the same markings but the base colour is a very pretty light gray-lavender. Pet guinea fowl are rare. Because guineas retain most of their natural wild instincts, taming one takes a considerable amount of time and patience.

They tear up the garden. They can be belligerent. They chase and peck other barnyard birds, and even each other. Growing guineas introduced into a flock of mature ones are likely to get run off. They have a high attrition rate. Guineas like to roost in trees, where they can get picked off by owls, and the hens nest in tall grass, where they easily fall victim to predators. They like to roam.

They make lousy parents. Guineas will usually remain at the place where they were raised, but rarely stay when relocated, unless they are first confined for several months.