Guineas Are Trainable

[robin416]

A few years ago I had to sell my trained flock of about 25 plus birds with a move. I couldn't stand it. I kept saying you're out of chickens, almost, leave this Guinea thing alone.

I lost the argument. I now have five lavenders and the neighbor's one royal purple. There were challenges due to the neighbor's single guinea living wild. My keets would do whatever the big guinea wanted. If that meant roosting in the trees well that's what they would do.

Finally the keets got old enough and discovered guinea cocaine, millet. Oh my yes, they would do anything for a fix including going into their pen in the evening. They also follow me around during the day trying to con me out of an extra handout. Most of the time I don't give in.

Even big guinea lights up when he sees me in the early evening. He knows, of yes he knows, his fix is coming.

 

[Swing]

I didn't know that about Guineas. I only knew they were good at keeping some nasty bugs down by grazing on them each day.

 

[robin416]

The things you do know, they can be very loud. Because everyone knows that.

They did an amazing job getting the ticks on our place in TN. I never saw the first one this year. The fun part was watching them when the Japanese Beetles started to hatch. Crazy birds zoomed all over the place catching them. I set up one of those beetle traps but cut hole in the bag, beetles dropped straight out where the flock was waiting.

 

[Swing]

Well, snack service to the birds. I bet they loved that. I wish I had had some here this year. For 20 years I've lived under trees with no ticks. Maybe one or two over all that time. This year I may have gotten about 10 off me over time. That was not good.

 

[robin416]

No, it's not. I did learn to wear a ball cap to keep them from dropping on my head from the trees. The cap was sprayed with DEET until it was pretty damp.

They said our warm Winters is the cause for so many bugs. The thing I've noticed the past two years are how many rabbits and squirrels are just outside of my door.

I can tell you that it takes time and extreme patience with Guineas.

 

[phideaux]

I raised 40 Guineas , from peeps, back a few years,
No ticks, or any other bugs around the place.
and they could get noisey.
I had Lavenders, they roosted in the trees by the chicken house,
but the coyotes stole them during the day time, a few at a time.

Got down to 10,
They left for greener pastures,
I watched hem out the kitchen window walk right out the back of the property and never look back.

We saw them weeks later about 10 miles from our place at another farm,

Oh well,
The Amish told me they never stay in one place long , because they really are not domesticated.


Jim

 

[robin416]

Don't believe everything the Amish tell you. It might have been that my place was fenced but I still had the originals 9 years later. There is the possibility yours heard other Guineas and went to them. I had one show up at my place, it stayed for a couple of weeks when all of sudden standing outside of the gate were four others of the same color, royal purple. Off the single went. My group didn't care, never seemed to notice the stranger was gone. I saw them several weeks later several miles from where I lived.

Training the females to lay in the coop is a challenge. The girls that nested near the house usually had a safe and successful hatch, those that were down in the lower pasture didn't last.

 

[ladycat]

I once raised 2 guineas with a big bunch of chickens the same age. Those two guineas thought they were chickens. They laid in the nest boxes, and roosted in the coop with the chickens. They never wandered.
It's when you raise a whole bunch of guineas by themselves that they will wander, due to not picking up the habits of the chickens.

 

[Swing]

How neat ladycat. Great to see you here. Another chicken lady.

 

[robin416]

Our poultry owners are steadily increasing.

 

[phideaux]

I once raised 2 guineas with a big bunch of chickens the same age. Those two guineas thought they were chickens. They laid in the nest boxes, and roosted in the coop with the chickens. They never wandered.
It's when you raise a whole bunch of guineas by themselves that they will wander, due to not picking up the habits of the chickens.

That's what happened to me,
I raised 40 of them.
They wandered all over , then finally ...away.


Jim

 

[robin416]

Mine had their own coop. My Head Tuck was nailed by a Guinea when she was young after having that happen no more Guineas in with my chickens. What mine did do, is run to meet me at the back door for their millet. Went up every evening without argument most of the time. Sometimes the low bird would be a challenge.

 

[Meerkat]

No, it's not. I did learn to wear a ball cap to keep them from dropping on my head from the trees. The cap was sprayed with DEET until it was pretty damp.

They said our warm Winters is the cause for so many bugs. The thing I've noticed the past two years are how many rabbits and squirrels are just outside of my door.

I can tell you that it takes time and extreme patience with Guineas.

We have lots of rabbits and squirrels. And ticks are a problem every fall and spring here. Don't know how the hunters take it. We also have plenty of them. The woods are growing in on us but maybe that is a good thing far as guns blasting all the time.
When we first moved here I told hubby no way am I going to keep hitting the ground eveytime these neighbors ' took their aim ' as the cop said when I called them as he spit tobacco near my feet. Hubby said he will be here waiting when I get back. Now I just hope for the best. And kinda glad. I just hope we are all on the same side,lol.

 

[Amish Heart]

Am wanting to get guineas when we retire to our place in Kansas. Everyone's got them there. We have so many bugs and ticks on the farm there, that I'm hoping they'll stay around. If not, I'll try that millet crack trick. Ha.
I raise chickens and turkeys. Just filled the incubator up with more chicken eggs. The extra Tom turkeys were very yummy this last Thanksgiving.

 

[Meerkat]

Our poultry owners are steadily increasing.

We took a break and gave them away about 2 years ago. This spring we will get more barred rock hens. This time only 3 or 4. We have 3 half covered pens 8x30 and 16x16. Good set up for free range chickens. All of ours have always been free range. They go in pens at night.

 

[Terri9630]

Am wanting to get guineas when we retire to our place in Kansas. Everyone's got them there. We have so many bugs and ticks on the farm there, that I'm hoping they'll stay around. If not, I'll try that millet crack trick. Ha.
I raise chickens and turkeys. Just filled the incubator up with more chicken eggs. The extra Tom turkeys were very yummy this last Thanksgiving.

Good luck with the incubator. I'm still waiting to see if this last chick will make it out. It's got a quarter sized hole in the Shell now but he sure is taking his time.

 

[Amish Heart]

You had a good hatch rate. How many eggs to start? Was wondering why a few day delay in the hatching....was a hen sitting on some for awhile? For sure now I'll leave unhatched in a little longer. I have two silkie eggs in with a lot of regular eggs, and I know that they are about 3 days earlier. Had one silkie earlier in the year with a bad foot, but it seems to get around ok. Silkies have an extra toe that looks pretty weird. Tonight is one of our first freeze nights, so I put in extra straw in each of the runs, and tarped up part of the turkey runs to keep them a little warmer. Looking forward to when those pairs start laying. Wonder what the incubation period for those will be?

 

[Meerkat]

Good luck with the incubator. I'm still waiting to see if this last chick will make it out. It's got a quarter sized hole in the Shell now but he sure is taking his time.

We built a brooder for the peeps hardware cloth floor chicken wire on sides , wood roof covered in roofign metal and used red lamps. Never lost a one. They will get under light when cold and move away when too warm.We raised at least a couple hundred in it. Once the arrived in the mail we did keep them in house first few days. We raised our ducks in it too.

 

[Terri9630]

You had a good hatch rate. How many eggs to start? Was wondering why a few day delay in the hatching....was a hen sitting on some for awhile? For sure now I'll leave unhatched in a little longer. I have two silkie eggs in with a lot of regular eggs, and I know that they are about 3 days earlier. Had one silkie earlier in the year with a bad foot, but it seems to get around ok. Silkies have an extra toe that looks pretty weird. Tonight is one of our first freeze nights, so I put in extra straw in each of the runs, and tarped up part of the turkey runs to keep them a little warmer. Looking forward to when those pairs start laying. Wonder what the incubation period for those will be?

The instructions from my incubator say 28 days for turkeys. I don't know why they hatched the way they did. Maybe because it's getting cooler at night, there might have been a warm area and cooler areas in the bator? I was shocked when we found the first chick. I removed the lid because it was time to take out the turner and there was a chick sitting where the egg should have been. 3 days early. This one is 3 days late. We pull the eggs from the coup a couple of times a day. We have a couple of egg eaters and have to beat them to them.

 

[Terri9630]

Oh, we had 16 eggs that hadn't been refrigerated but had about 40 in the frig so I used those to fill the bator. I didn't expect any of those to Hatch because our frig tends to freeze things but some did.

 

[Meerkat]

My neighbor used an incubator. She went back to brooder, but we live in a warm climate so we don't have many freezes here in spring. April will at times sneak in a hard freeze. Learned the hard way about buying up or putting out plants in April. Running around covering up plants with anything we could find. Garbage cans, plant containers, blankets, bowls etc,etc,etc,.

 

[Terri9630]

My neighbor used an incubator. She went back to brooder, but we live in a warm climate so we don't have many freezes here in spring. April will at times sneak in a hard freeze. Learned the hard way about buying up or putting out plants in April. Running around covering up plants with anything we could find. Garbage cans, plant containers, blankets, bowls etc,etc,etc,.

You use an incubator to hatch the eggs, the brooder is for keeping the chicks warm after hatching.

 

[Meerkat]

You use an incubator to hatch the eggs, the brooder is for keeping the chicks warm after hatching.

Well so much for paying attention. glad you told me before I really skinned my comphehinsion.. I guess just throwing the eggs into the brooder wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[Amish Heart]

I never tried putting eggs in the fridge and then in the incubator .I just put them in an egg carton on the counter. I wonder if some cold/some not changed your hatch dates? We have a weird octagon shaped incubator that holds about 20 eggs. It didn't come with the rods that keep the eggs from rolling around, so we made our own with wire coat hangers. It ended up giving us more room for more eggs, and there's about 26 in there now. Whatever hatches will be close to Christmas. I love having baby chicks around.

 

[Terri9630]

I never tried putting eggs in the fridge and then in the incubator .I just put them in an egg carton on the counter. I wonder if some cold/some not changed your hatch dates? We have a weird octagon shaped incubator that holds about 20 eggs. It didn't come with the rods that keep the eggs from rolling around, so we made our own with wire coat hangers. It ended up giving us more room for more eggs, and there's about 26 in there now. Whatever hatches will be close to Christmas. I love having baby chicks around.

The incubator, from TS, was my Christmas present last year, it's square and came with the turner. The ones we planned to put in the bator were kept on the counter. The ones from the frig were just a "Why not? We have way to many..."

 

[Terri9630]

Well so much for paying attention. glad you told me before I really skinned my comphehinsion.. I guess just throwing the eggs into the brooder wouldn't be a good idea.

It might work if it keeps the eggs about 100 degrees and you turn them at least twice a day.

 

[Amish Heart]

My grandma used to hatch in a brooder...with an oil lamp near by to keep it up to temp. Had to turn the eggs manually. She didn't have electricity.

 

[ladycat]

I never tried putting eggs in the fridge and then in the incubator .

When I was a kid, and a hen would go broody, my mother would take eggs out of the fridge and put them under the hen. They hatched pretty well.

 

[Redbeard]

We are one of the very few countries that keep eggs in the refrigerator.

 

[Double R]

I bought an incubator over a year ago. It’s still sitting in the box.