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Guinea Hens - NOW Chickens!; Does Anyone Have Them?
Topic Started: Apr 12 2008, 06:02 PM (411 Views)
debbie
I Visited Candy Mountain and All I Got Was This Lousy Incision
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I'm battling ticks like crazy on my horses, dogs and even me :spew: . (How is it my husband escapes the nasty things?) My poor mares are just a mass a oozing bumps on their udders. I've added garlic powder to their diets and I keep them sprayed with fly spray and hopefully that will start to help soon.

In the meantime, I asked my feed store guy for his suggestions and he was a big advocate for guinea hens. We'd been thinking of getting chickens, but he said they don't do as well on the ticks as the guineas.

Sooo, anyone have guineas? Pros/cons? We do have coyotes and foxes. Would I just be supplying them with a fresh poultry dinner?
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OTF
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Hi Debbie,

We have 6 guineas, down from about 15 this time last year. I wish we had more.

The good: Yes, they eat ticks and other creepy crawly things. We have never found a tick on the donkeys, only one or two on the cows. Guineas come in different colors too! Odd birds, but also interesting and entertaining to watch. The males will race and chase each other, round and round, top speed, even in 95* heat...amazing!

The bad: They can be...no, they ARE...noisy. I've gotten used to the noise, but if you have neighbors close by, they won't like the birds (unless they appreciate the fact that they won't have ticks in their yards either). Guineas sound their alarm at pretty much anything and sometimes I can't tell what it is, but I pay attention anyway in case something is amiss.

Being somewhat wild, once they're let loose (after they know where home is), they'll patrol your yard and pastures as a team but they'll also go to your neighbors' yards, even if it means crossing the road (we've lost a few to speeders...I swear they aim for the birds! :censored: ). If I ever saw someone run over my guinea, I'd be out there with a pitchfork raising a ruckus.

They will nest in odd places...the middle of a pasture, the ditch by the side of the road...and their nests are frequently raided by raccoons and other things, very sad. They can fly quite well, but a hen setting on eggs will not leave the nest and is easy prey for marauders. When they do hatch out babies, the whole troop seems to stay together with the babies. But if a baby can't keep up, nobody waits for it :,( and many babies do not survive (13 hatched last year, none made it). When they raise the babies, I've seen them "assign" a watch bird to keep an eye skyward for hawks. I thought that was pretty cool.

I'm sure you can find lots of information by goodling them. Sorry I babbled on so long. Your feedstore guy is right -- there really isn't anything better on ticks than guinea hens!
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Buryinghill1
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Do Guinea hens come from Guinea? I have a niece there (she works for the State Dept... I think she is a spy)
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naters
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We don't have them, but the farm across the street has a TON.

They are noisy, but cute. And I have never found a tick on my horse.

The guinea hens are constantly attentive to his pasture, and he doesn't seem to care to much about them.
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DairyQueen2049
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My neighbor has them. I HATE them (sorry, but I do - the noise is deafening), and we still have ticks. :angry: :angry:
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vxf111
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I HATE them. I also HATE ticks. It's a serious tossup which I hate worse.

Where Shane used to be boarded, they had guniea hens and chickens. The GHs are the dumbest things I've ever seen. They would just SIT in the middle of the road or go dashing out to meet the BO's shutzhound dogs. Bye bye GHs. The chickens seemed almost embarassed to be fowl and stayed entirely to themselves!

The GHs would go on roams as a group and never come back. They would be discovered smooshed several miles down the road. Sometimes one or two GHs would get a wild hair and run around like maniacs in the pasture. Sometimes they ran into things and horses. Yeah, the horses LOVED that. Eventually the BO took to putting 1/2 the GHs in the roost with the chickens. That seemed to keep the roaming loose GHs at bay. It did nothing to stop the ocassional pasture foot-races.

They made noise CONSTANTLY, day and night. And for no apparent reason would go on a rampage and make even more noise, sh*t all over, and drop feathers. You never knew when the GHs would lose it. They also liked to perch up on the rafters in the barn/indoor. Sometimes they had their little group rampages up there and then they'd come divebombing down and land on people/horse with no regard for what was underneath them.

They really were some of the dumbest animals I've ever seen. Shane was terrified of them. I can't say I blame him. How'd you like some big ugly feathery poop machine to fall on your head without warning?!
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Black Tack
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:teehee: :yes: :teehee: Loff your last sentence V :teehee:
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debbie
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Okay, I think I've nixed the guinea hen idea! :teehee: I gently floated the idea with my neighbor and she was aghasted. I'm pretty sure the noise would drive me to drink, too. I already have the yappiest corgi in existence driving me crazy!

I still want chickens though, just hens, so I can have eggs.

Don't know why exactly. :shoot: My two worst childhood memories have to do with collecting eggs. One I was an itty bitty tyke and I had to hoist myself up and teeter on my stomach to reach into the nesting box. From this really precarious position I leaned in to get the eggs and it was like holy hell exploded. A black snake (I HATE snakes.) had been resting on top of the coop and took off across the wire scaring me into shrieking sobs as I levitated off the ledge and ran for the house. :point:

The second, I was only slightly less itty bitty and had a pet goat. As I was leaned over that dang ledge again - tush in the air, feet dangling, the goat stepped down into a yellow jackets nest at the base of the barn wall. More screams and shrieks and a very unhappy goat!

It's a wonder I'll even eat an egg, much less want to actively seek out having chickens. I must be a masochist.... :psycho:
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OTF
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Oh well, so much for the guineas. Chickens are great too, but they won't help much with keeping down the tick population and they don't fend for themselves as well as guineas (chickens can't fly well and need to be secured at night, etc.). Fresh eggs are great, kind of like Christmas when you go out to collect them...except for once in a while, you grab an egg that, for some odd reason, has no shell (like putting your hand on a blob of some sort). Probably shouldn't have said that...now you won't want chickens either. But chickens that are allowed to free range a bit will break up manure piles and eat all the lovely things therein. That counts for something, right?
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debbie
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Thanks OTF, I'm all about chickens even with the occasional shell-less egg! :lol: They just make me smile to watch them clucking about and hearing how proud they are to lay an egg.

I think the guineas would have been cool to watch, too, but our farm is behind 3 other farms and I'm sure the guineas would wander across all 4 farms and I really don't want to alienate my new neighbors. Apparently my two neighbors with horses don't have the tick issues I have. Of course, they don't have as much wooded area as I do either so it makes sense.
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Fish Cheeks
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Ok, for those of you with chickens - how do you get them to come in at night? Do they just go to their house or do you have to round them up (and is it easier or harder than herding cats? :teehee: )

I'd love to have chickens and could make a house but don't want to fence off an entire area - I'd like them to be able to roam the whole property.
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OTF
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Miss Fishie,

We have a small area fenced in for our chickens. When we first get new ones (4-5 months old), they are kept in a cage with food and water for a few days so they don't "fly the coop," so to speak. :)

Then we open the cage and let them loose in their fenced in area...I usually clip the feathers on one wing so that they can't fly over their fence.

I don't let them out of their pen for a while (they need to leearn where home, food, and safety are) but when I do, it's for a short time in the yard...they mostly stay together and really get into scratching around for bugs, etc. I round them up when it's time to go back in (before dark). Yes, you kind of have to play "cutting horse" with a few to get them going in the right direction toward their gate. After a few times, they learn where to go and do so on their own. I do a headcount to be sure you've got all the strays. Occasionally I've missed one and find it huddled next to something in the dark, so I scoop her up and put her in with her buddies.

Chickens can be a lot of fun; many interesting breeds. There are lots and lots of websites on getting started with chickens, but here are a couple of websites that have good info:

www.homesteadingtoday.com

www.themodernhomestead.us
(click on Livestock, then Poultry -- Harvey, "The Chicken Man of Hume," writes well and is very knowledgeable about all chicken stuff)

I wrote this quickly as I'm getting ready to head to work, but hope it helps. Also, HH has chickens and may chime in here!
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debbie
I Visited Candy Mountain and All I Got Was This Lousy Incision
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FC, I changed the title to see if we can get HH and other chicken afficionados (sp?) over here. I have the same questions. I have an area to make a chicken coop/yard, but I really want them to free range some to help with scattering poop in the paddocks and eating flies and hopefully a few ticks. :P

My feed store guy hosts a poultry sale each month and you can get mature chickens which I think might be easier to start with... plus eggs right away!

My DH was just diagnosed with high cholestorol, so I'll be giving lots of eggs away... :unsure:
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