Guinea Hens (Fowl), anyone have some?

I had a neighbor that had a bunch of them and they were always out in the road. That's all I know about them.

They're more 'wild' than chickens. They want to roost in trees and hunt bugs and watch for hawks and protect the yard from pretty much everything. Word on the street is that if you raise them with chickens you can get them to go into a coop at night. Mine were raised on their own and once they found trees you couldn't get them back in the coop come hell or high water. I started with 9 and after two and a half years I'm down to 1. An owl got one early. The dog killed a few, a couple and just disappeared and racoons have gotten the rest. They like to be on top of things. They hop up on the porch and the swing set and most frustratingly, my truck. They will scratch the paint on a car if they decide to get on. My truck looks like it's been attacked by little tiny tigers. They will eat fire ants. It's kind of a big deal here in the south. Just feed them on the ant hill and they'll tear it down and eat everything that moves. On the subject of food, it's a good idea to whistle or something at feeding time. Mine have gotten out several times and it's handy to walk out the road and whistle and have them come running. More than once I've looked like the pied piper of guineas walking down the street with a half dozen of them running after me. They do hate hawks. They SCREAM when they see on. Or think they see on. Or imagine they see one. Or remember that one time that they saw one. Yes, they're loud, but they're only loud when the sun is up, so that's nice. I've really enjoyed my guineas and will almost certainly get more in the future.
Edit: I mail ordered them. I love mail ordering fowl.

I've heard that as guard dogs they're the next best thing to actual dogs, they're cartoonishly stupid though, someone on here also said they stink really bad.

I think they're less stinky than chickens and they tear up the ground less aggressively. They're not so much cartoonishly stupid as..... collective thinkers. The more of them there are the harder it is for them to come to a consensus opinion and they spend a LOT of time talking about what to do next. This leads to the impression that they're just standing around yelling at each other and hawks and cars and dogs and people and pretty much everything. If you can imagine how a really on edge alarmed chicken is, that's pretty much the calmest you will ever see a guinea that isn't dead. They spend a lot of time worrying.

I dunno about them as "guard dogs". I'd have likened them to "alarm systems", as I've never seen them do ANY kind of protecting whatsoever. They do make lots of noise if there's an intruder, so if you want to call that protecting, okay.

Great for keeping the bugs down. Stoopid as berkeley. Roost anywhere they can get to. Can fly reasonably well, but not well enough to fly away.

Get some. You'll either love them or hate them.

I've had them. If you like deafening noise, they're your bird.

My experiences with them are they would start screaming at the first hint of light, and continue until total darkness. They will fly over fences outward, and then pace them screaming to get back in. They will do this for hours on end, every day.

Maybe they helped with the ticks. Maybe.

Can't say I ever saw them run around screaming loudly any differently when a hawk flew overhead or not.

If you touch one at night, they explode in screaming terror, running fast and hard until they hit something. If they didn't hit something, they would go for a good 100 yards usually, and then prostrate themselves.

Half would roost up trees, half would hunker down in the grass. None ever went into the coop. Those in the trees were eaten faster than those on the ground. Be it owls or coons, no idea. Probably didn't help that those in the trees spent the night screaming.

It was incredible the crash of silence when I slaughtered the last Guinea Fowl. I've heard silence crash down before, but not like this. Wife came out of the house as I recall, looking around. Neighbors came over, even from down the road a ways.

Never again will I do Guinea Fowl. Ever.

You know, if never occurred to me that people would have chickens without guinea fowl!

Totally forgot about the mirror trick. Do that, it works. The guineas are so worried about missing the other guineas that they stay closer. It dramatically reduced the incidences of the whole flock deciding to defect. They will do the fence thing where they get over one way and are wholly incapable of getting back over the other way. You'll probably get pretty good at pitching them from your neighbors yard back to yours. Stay light hearted about the whole thing and you'll have fun.

Wonkothesane wrote: Foxtrapper - They can't be dumber than chickens.... I don't think they could breathe under their own power if they were dumber than chickens...

Well, chickens know how to fly over a fence in both directions. The Guineas only could do it in one direction.

Seriously, I don't think they are dumber than chickens, but they are far more high strung. I saw nothing to indicate they were actually any smarter than a chicken though.

For serious dumb, get domestic turkey.

mazdeuce wrote: Edit: I mail ordered them. I love mail ordering fowl.

Isn't it the best? When I had my "farm" the town was too small and my house too close to the trailer that passed for a post office to get actual mail delivery, I had to go pick up every day. The postal workers were very amused when I had 30 chicks delivered, kept them entertained for hours until I got there to pick them up.

On that note, when I lived in that very rural area, which was also a tick infested nightmare, everyone had guinea fowl. During the day they seemed to group up and roam the area but at night mine always came back to the farm to roost. I did not find them to be constantly noisy, but as noted they are a great alarm system. When something was out of place you knew about it. But they didn't make noise when I arrived home or any of my roommates or my dogs wandering about, but a stranger, or strange animal would cause an alarm from them.

Get enough (I had 6) and let them have a quiet place to hide and they will be a self sustaining population. I usually had 4-8 chicks show up in the flock every spring, kept the numbers up when other critters got ahold of them.

I don't have much experience with them, but a good friend of mine has a neighbor with some, and she HATES them. So whether you like them or not, if you have neighbors, you might be making enemies.

This is like the thread version of the screaming goats video – I laughed out loud reading it.

No experience with guinea fowl. I've got 5 chickens, though. Whoever coined the phrase "eats like a bird" wasn't thinking of chickens. I call mine "pigs with wings" because they eat most anything, and they aren't exactly dainty about it.

I've heard ducks can be fun....

I always thought ducks were the cutest thing on earth until I read about their sex habits.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-2938-duck-rape/

In reply to Lesley:

Holy Berkley!

Lesley wrote: I always thought ducks were the cutest thing on earth until I read about their sex habits. http://www.cracked.com/funny-2938-duck-rape/

Oh yea. Just watch them and you'll see this.

I lost a really pretty drake one time to this. Don't know what caused the others to find him so attractive. But they certainly did, to his fatal detriment.

My neighbor has them. They attempt to threaten me and my German shepherd as we pass by our house on our daily walks. I do my best to avoid them, as I can only imagine what would happen if they actually decided to get close enough to the dog.

He gets real excited about the prospect though.

In reply to Wonkothesane:

I guess the character "Long Duck Dong" in 16 Candles wasn’t such a funny name after all...

Pardon me for a minor thread jack.

I know that guineas are known as tick eating machines, are they really noticeably better than free range chickens when it comes to bug eating?

I grew up in a rural area, someone in my neighborhood had peacocks, and they could sometimes be heard from miles away. If guineas are that noisy I would want nothing to do with them.

HappyAndy wrote: Pardon me for a minor thread jack. I know that guineas are known as tick eating machines, are they really noticeably better than free range chickens when it comes to bug eating? I grew up in a rural area, someone in my neighborhood had peacocks, and they could sometimes be heard from miles away. If guineas are that noisy I would want nothing to do with them.

In my experience, they were not tick eating machines. While I regularly saw them snapping at something, usually in the air, I never saw what it was. I never saw them snap at the ticks I could see perched on the grass stems. They would dash past them to snap at a ghost in the air instead.

As for the noise difference between peafowl and guinea fowl, I'd give it to the guinea fowl. Cousin raises peafowl, and they are much quieter. Both on the individual calls, and for total call quantity. Peafowl are more destructive though.