Guinea fowl can be sort of an exotic addition to a homestead.
You will hear many glamorous things about them such as the fact that guinea fowl will eat ticks and snake and rats.
You might hear that they are easier on the yard than chickens, that they don’t scratch as much or won’t go after your garden as much. And, yes, all of that is true. Guinea fowl do eat ticks and snakes.
They are somewhat easier on your land. But in the interest of full disclosure you really should know the things that they do that aren’t so glamorous.
5 Reasons Not to Own Guinea Fowl
1. They are loud. Let me say that again.
Guineas are LOUD!!!
No cute little clucking noises from these guys, it’s full out screaming and screeching. Sometimes this is spun as a positive. I don’t know how many times I read that guinea fowl make great alarm systems.
And to an extent that is true. Guineas will alert you to strange dogs, people and cars coming on to your property. But they will also alert you to the fact that a door just slammed, the wind blew, or a car drove by a mile down the road. They also have a habit of moving as one solitary unit.
Where one goes, the others go. It is actually sort of fascinating to watch, but when one guinea gets separated from the flock? You’d better cover your ears until they find each other again!
When you have new additions there will always be a period adjustment while they figure out the new order. And if you thought this was a tough process to watch with chickens, you will be amazed with guineas- these guys are mean! The guinea fowl figured out their own pecking order eventually but be prepared for a longer adjustment if you have other birds as well.
Our guineas were raised from keets with chicks. They were together from the beginning. When we added the young birds- both guinea and chicken- to our mature flock the usual fight for top bird began. 6 months later- half our chickens were missing their tail and back feathers. They were afraid to go into the coop at night once the guineas were in there. Half the time we let the guineas roost in the trees just to give the chickens a break. Which leads me into my next point…
3. They love to roam.
I recently shared my thoughts on free range chickens, but I assume if you want to purchase guinea fowl it is mostly for their tick-eating tendencies. I’ll tell you now that they won’t eat many ticks in a covered run.
They are free range birds and they take it to the extreme. If you’ve done your research about raising guinea fowl you will know that you should raise them in their final home, or keep them locked in their new home for quite a few weeks before allowing them outdoors so that they know where home is.
I am here to warn you, even if you do that, they will still have trouble coming home at night. Guineas can fly pretty well and jump pretty high which means fencing isn’t really going to do much. Once they are comfortable with being outdoors they will start pushing the limits.
They will cross roads, bother your neighbors, terrorize the horses down the street- all while screaming and squawking. They might come home and night, they might not.
They might go into their coop or they might find the tallest tree imaginable and fly and jump their way to the tiny top branches.
4. They will brood and breed. So if you have survived the first few months with guinea fowl and you make it to laying season, you will begin to notice small speckled eggs in your nest boxes. Either that or you will notice some of your guinea hens are all of a sudden missing. You might wait a few days for them to come home and then assume that they were nabbed by a fox or neighborhood dog and move on with your life.
Until the day your guinea fowl flock all of sudden grows exponentially. Guineas nest on the ground, and they usually do it under cover somewhere. If you have a well-concealed nest of eggs you might wake up to find mama guinea with her newly hatched brood ready to join the rest of the flock. Guinea hens are a little different than broody chickens in that they will sit on eggs and raise young together. You could be potentially looking at a nest of 40 or more eggs!
5. They are stupid. Okay, I don’t like the word stupid.
I try not to use it often, but unintelligent just doesn’t get the point across. I am pretty sure that guinea fowl are one of the stupidest animals I have ever met. They have no sense of self preservation and when they get scared or separated it’s like their brains fly out the window.
This will get them in all sorts of trouble. It will cause them to get eaten by predators. It will cause you to give up on getting them in the house at night even though a hurricane is blowing through.
It will cause them to squawk and screech incessantly until somehow their brains return.a