Hello,
I am new to this forum.I have chickens,geese,Pigeons, ringneck doves ect.I just got a pair of guinea fowl and am so excited!!! as i have wanted some for quite some time.Right now I have them in with my buff bearded polish and all is well but im concerned if they are getting the right nutrition.They are eating layer crumbles,cracked corn and a little bit of scratch.I did buy some Nutrina game bird crumbles but do they need the one for ducks or turkeys?Any ideas as to what else they should have?Also does anyone know if they will lay eggs where the chickens lay?
Thanks
In advance
Guinea fowl Question.
Hang in there. A few of us have had guineas, but not many. Just bump it if you don't have luck right away. And the reference thread at the top of the page may have a few links that would be helpful...
My guineas eat all the things you named above plus scraps..Also we are on the farm and have lots of excess greens..(collards, turnips, mustard)... They get these daily as do the chickens.., especially if they never get to free range.. Also, guineas are great bug eaters.. When they don;t get out like they should, I feed a treat of earthworms and meal worms..Both are easy to raise.
Guineas don't raise babies well in pens, you may have to take their eggs and give to a broody hen..
Larkie
Welcome She_Wolfie! I've never raised Guineas. My Aunt had them but they essentially ran wild eating anything they found. Good luck with yours.
Thank you so much.We are trying to figure out how were gonna work getting them out this summer.We have a few big trees so im afraid if we just let them out in the day we will never get them out of the trees and back in the barn at night.Would they follow the chickens back into the barn? Also i did read a thred that mentiond how they will get ya zuchinni and stuff.I have enogh trouble with my great goat escapes.:0)
Thank you for the warm welcome.
This message was edited Feb 7, 2010 2:21 PM
Yes, with loose goats and guineas you might not have a lot of garden left! My aunt's feral guineas didn't care to go in at all. They specialized in running down the middle of the road loudly obstructing traffic. I know that some people are able to train theirs to come in at night, but guineas are pretty independent.
There is a site somewhere on how to "train" your guinea to come in for the night, but I don't think they will do it on their own.
As grownut says, there are quite a few people on the forum who either have or had guineas and there has been a lot of discussion about how to handle them....you might try googling "davesgarden guinea roosting" or "raising".
We had an interesting discussion at one time about guinea/chicken hybrids....very rare but possible
I've posted this elsewhere, but for your edification:
We had guineas with our hens for awhile. A friend had recommended them for insect control, particularly for ticks which are a problem around here. However, they got into our garden and seemed to prefer the bean and zucchini buds to bugs; I got no fruit as long as they were around. They are also noisy - "GeGANK geGANK geGANK!" Our poultry yard is on the other side of our garage across the driveway, so it wasn't as bad as the Fowler's toads in the pond right under our windows, but still they did make a racket.
As far as going into the henhouse at night, yes, they finally learned, but not before we spent weeks corralling them and stuffing them through the little door in the evening. Eventually they started to get the idea, and we would stand outside waiting for the last one to sally in so we could shut them up. All of them would be safely ensconced inside when a random thought would flicker through one pea-sized brain and it would decide that it had something urgent to do out in the yard. All of the others would follow suit and we'd have to wait all over again until it occurred to them, "Hmmmm - dark. Should be inside. Hmmmmm." I used to stand there doubled over with laughter. They finally did figure out the routine, but still, I have never seen anything so witless yet mobile in my life. We ended up giving them to our friend who recommended them to us, where they got picked off by foxes and eagles since she doesn't lock hers up at night.
You can probably tell that I don't recommend them. They taste good, though.
I think g_g's experience represents the most common one related in the threads...but some people did just adore their guineas.
And there were some lovely colours available: Pearl, Lavender, Opaline:
http://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/colors/
This message was edited Feb 7, 2010 5:21 PM
Actually the feathers are the reason I want them.I do alot of native american crafts and the feathers really make great final touches to loads of things.lol the picture is of the cage mates imagine those two breeds crossing giggle
Oooo! What are they?
Yeah I love the polish also.When i lived in florida i had a few polish there but they were much smaller than theses.They lay a large white egg.We have one hen who looks alot like a roo and has big spurs you can see one spur in this pic.she also has alot more long feathers in her head. but she lays eggs regular.
Beautiful (and well-armed) hen!
I'm in that "love my guineas!" part of the population! haha! They are so entertaining and they do help keep the grasshoppers out of my gardens. I was "adopted" by 2 males about a year ago and fell for them and their antics!
To answer a couple of questions: Yes, they do lay eggs, but not always where it's convenient for you to find them. Mine have been laying in the back of the coop for the last few weeks, but as it's way too cold for the keets to survive, I've had to catch the brooder hens out of the way and snatch up some fertilized eggs and get rid of them. I haven't really heard of people having a lot of problems getting their guineas in for the night - they're blind as bats in the dark and don't particularly like being "out". I've found that with a light left on in their coop they always come in at dusk. One thing though - you have to keep them in the coop/pen area for a few weeks without letting them out, allowing them to commit the layout of the place to memory - As stated above - they're not the smartest birds! Just very endearing and funny. And they are loud - we live in the country on 8 acres and don't have much trouble. Neighbors are far enough away I guess.
Hope this helps - if I can answer any other questions, just dmail me and I'll do my best!
Deb
ohhh thank you Deb.They are in a pen with the polish chickens in my chicken building.Should i let them run loose in the building to get used to they layout all around the inside building? right now i have extra roos running around so a couple of keets would not make a diffrence.I really would like to let them out this summer.I only have one pair tho so im afraid of loosing eather of them.Did yours eat the fruit and veggies from your garden also?Should i add a little cat food to they layer crumbles,cracked corn and scratch im giving them now for more proteen?I bought a bag of gamebird crumbles im going to add to their diet.My polish are loving sharing all the wonderful new goodies im buying for the keets.
Tina
Hi Tina - Whether or not to let them run loose depends on how big they are. If you have roos running around they could really harm the keets. It's best to keep the keets in an area away from the roos until they're big enough to take better care of themselves. In the building with the chickens sounds perfect. Guineas "imprint" their surroundings as "home" and need to be confined to the building that's the home for approximately 6 weeks so if they're in with the chickens that sounds perfect. Later in the spring you can let them out for a while each day for a few days and then they'll have the idea. Do your chickens free range or do they stay cooped? Most likely the guineas will stay close to the chickens. As for having the pair - I had a pair show up on my doorstep last year and wanted to get a couple more for company. They're very much "flock" birds. Anyway got the 4 keets and before they were old enough to let out one of my original ones got killed by a neighbors dog that was on our property. Moral of story is that if they tend to wander off alone more is better than just 2. with a few they have more "watchers" and tend to stay safer. Not necessary to have a lot but 4-6 is better than just the 2. Course if your chickens free range they help with the watching.
My guineas don't particularly like lettuce etc out of the gardens. I've pretty much always fed them turkey feed (higher protein is better for guineas) from keets on up to adults and then they get the layer crumbles. No reason to add anything else to the food. I do add a little bit of wild bird food as they like that and it gives them variety. It sounds like you're doing a good job! There's so much info available about these neat birds. If you need more info feel free to d-mail me!
Deb
Another reason we got rid of our guineas (thankfully we had friends who wanted them!) was because they kept picking off the flowers on my squash and peas and beans. And it was hard to keep them out of the garden because they fly. They were just not a good fit for our place!
The 2 I have are an adult pair.I will keep them in with the chickens for now they seem to be happy enough in there.The pen is inside of the chicken building The pen is probly 8'x8'x8'. eventually we want to make little outdoor runs for each pen.We have 2 of the large pens and 4 of the smaller 8'x4'x8' pens in the building right now but plan to make probly 5 more big pens in that building.I will make sure there outdoor pen(when we build it) is completly inclosed for now.I dont want to loose them but i do want them to breed so we can have a bunch more.I was thinking i could relase 1 dozen of their babies in a year or 2 and see how they do.I do worry bout my garden and also we are surronded by bean and corn fields in all directions so i was wondering it they would wander off thru the fields.
Yes,
Guineas will go miles..but they come home..what the predators don't get..
Larkie
Tina,
The guineas will tend to wander - that's why it's safer when there's more of them - they can watch out for danger better. Good luck with the hatching this Spring! It'll be my first time to hatch my own babies, so I'm pretty excited. I had to promise my DH we'd have no more than 20 (we have 13 now) but he's found he likes them as much as I do!
Deb
The current issue of Hobby Farms features poultry and gives these two websites for more information on guineas:
http://www.guineafowlinternational.org/
http://web2.uconn.edu/poultry/poultrypages/guineafowlmanagement.html
Also a big group of guineas running determinedly down the middle of the road is easier to see than a small group. - Easier to hear too.
I belong to the Guinea Fowl Internation Assoc. and their website is awesome!(referencing the above mentioned website) There are folks there from all over the world and can answer pretty much any question you could think of! That's where I got my information when the 2 first landed on my roof and they're great folks.
If you keep the guinneas locked up for 6 weeks, then let them out, they know where they eat and sleep, and will come in on thier own at night. Thats how I do it with guinnea, chickens, turkeys and peafowl.
Same here, but there is always a stubborn one that goes way up high..lol
Larkie
Larkie, yes that is true. I have been known to lock one out now and then. It roosted in a tree until morning, and was glad to see his siblings the next day.