Can you run them with chickens? do you eat the eggs? is there a market for raising them? hope someone knows.
does anyone know about guinias? {spelling}
Biggered we had them at our place. Our always kind of bullied our chickens. My understand is you can eat the eggs and the birds. Not sure how much of a market there is for them. They are extremely noisy!!!
Hi there Marie! I have been wondering where
and how you are? Hope all is well with you?
Nice to 'see' you!
Guineas stay pretty much in their own cliique
when they free range, and can be bossy mean
to chickens, but there are svereral members here
and elsewhere in the poultry world that house the
guineas in the same coop with the chickens. They
are reportedly good to eat, and they like having a
mirror to look at themselves with.
Hi truest!! How are you? Where is every one hanging out now?
Marie Marie Marie where have you been???
We have all been in Spring Fever Holdover #2
and Everyone has been asking about you, girl!
We have missed you terribly! We wanted to hear
just how hot it's been for you, and how your children
are doing- just so much! You must come over and
say hi to everyone!
Ok I will go and look for you all!!
They are fantastic eaters of bugs and extremely entertaining to watch, but they wreak absolute havoc on landscaping! Our property is adjacent to a small farm on which about 16 guinea fowl are based. They roam freely through all the nearby yards. The upsides to this are the features I note above (we have a yard virtually free of ticks and japanese beetles, which beseiged us in our other guinea-free residence). However, we spend a really large part of our time chasing them out of our mulched areas as they scratch and kick and throw the mulch around in an unbelievably messy way. Likewise, they dig up flowerbeds and utterly decimate areas where we have planted flower, vegetable or grass seed and unless we are always vigilant (by which I mean running into the yard hollering, waving our arms, banging pots and pans, etc) they eat up the entire seeded area. Needless to say, the cost in seed, mulch and our time has started to really add up. Covering the seed very deeply with straw and grass clippings helps a good bit with the seed loss (the guineas just tore right thru the typical landscaping batting designed to cover and protect seed) but the only sure fire way we've found to get it to sprout and take root in spite of the birds is to lay plastic fencing on top of the straw. The mulch is another matter--- can't seem to stop that ticker tape parade of mulch tossing no matter what we do. Unless we fence every flowerbed, we're pretty much stuck.
you can also do a forum search on guineas, there must be a dozen threads in this forum alone, lots of guinea lovers, inlcuding ME!
the above folks have all been correct, they will free range with chickens fine but they will bully them. They eat the same things as well as being better foragers regarding ticks and other bugs. And they are noisy so either be in the middle of nowhere or prepare for your neighbors to hate you.
I love my guineas. I have 8 that roost at night with the chickens. They free range during the day, and they are wonderful for eating bugs, lots of bugs!
Guineas are considered gourmet eating - they even did an Iron Chef America show featuring guineas as the secret ingredient.
Now, I find that my chickens are messier and more troublesome to the landscape than the guineas are. I guess it all depends. I currently have about 30 guinea eggs incubating, as I want more - and not all 30 will make it to adulthood - they have an uncanny ability to die - one froze to death, a few refused to get in the coop at night and the owls got them - and before I finished my chicken run, the skunks got several babies.
They are noisy and hilarious to watch. Now, we have 80 acres, so they are no trouble to anyone.
I have never seen them bully my chickens, but my chickens are bigger than the guineas! I do not have any bantams, that might be why.
There is a wonderful book about raising guineas. Gardening with Guineas (http://www.guineafowl.com/). I followed the authors instructions and the guineas know where home is and come home every night.
A huge plus I have noticed is this - the guineas go through the horse pasture and eat any flies or maggots they can find - I have not had to use any fly spray on my horses yet this year!
we have not seen a tick all year! and yes the guineas love the horse droppings. we found a few lice in one chicken pen , my DH is hoping hte guineas will eat those?
My parents had Guinea's and they ate some of the eggs. My mother liked to use them, when she made cheesecake..the yolks of the guinea eggs made the cheesecake ORANGE!
i hear it also makes the best ice cream!
Biggered did you get guineas?
My guineas do not bully my chickens at all. They also do not bother my large rat snakes like they are suppossed to. Love my guineas and chickens but I let them free range and there are really too many predators around here. Hawks in the day and owls, coyotes, opossums, racoons, skunks and my wife says she saw a fox once. I was talking to my neighbor who has an Iris farm (Argyle Acres) and he told me that one of my guineas had a nest in the middle of one of his Iris rows for a while but that something must have took it. You really need to have some land or tolerant neighbors to have guineas. They are loud and like to roam. My wife calls them dodo birds. They will walk out into the street like they are daring a car to hit them. Take care,
Mike
I am a brand new owner of these, and i am learning also.
ho ware your keets tia?
lost one last night and one of the white ones is hobbling, with wings out a bit, maybe it will come around.
A couple of weeks ago, something injured my Rhode Island Red hen. Her leg was injured and she would not put any weight on it. The vet said it was probably broke and not much hope if it was. She wanted her so I signed her over to the vet to see if she could fix her or at least give her some quality of life. Last week something injured one of my leghorn hens in the same manner. Could it be a 6' rat snake? I know they are constrictors and am now thinking that possibly it attacks to get the eggs. Thanks in advance, Mike
We let the guineas out of their house yesterday, one decided it was going to roost in the woods last nite. When DH went out this morning, there it was, waiting for him to let it back into the coop. Sooooo, we decided to let them free range with the chicks this evening. Now, there are nine of them, and they have nine roosters that came with them. I don't know if the they think they are chicks or the roosters think they are guineas, but they did stay more or less together when they were out. I don't know about bullying the chickens, but will watch and find out.
One of my other roosters (I think it was a juvenile) decided one of the guineas was fair game and yep, did the thing. I didn't like that because although he is almost 4 months old, the guineas are only 2-1/2 months old. I don't think they are mature at this age, but being new to guineas don't really know.
GG