Moron's With Wings

Guineas... the necessary bird for your flock but also one of the dumbest creatures on the planet. The picture above is during their first week of life. When they are cute, constantly chirping and are sure to make most people smile. This is before they grow up to become the most dangerous creature I have ever dealt with. No, they are not a danger to you or any other livestock. Even though at times they like to act tough which simply is them running straight at whatever they are wanting to fight. The reason they are the most dangerous creature is the threat to themselves. I mean this very seriously, I have grown fond of our guineas; they are a stable bird, when we let the chickens out each morning or put them to bed. That said they are the dumbest creatures on this planet and for the first six months of their life your primary objective is to keep them alive. Not necessarily from predators, I mean seriously the bird goes around honking most of the day and they might as well be ringing the dinner bell.

Now before I go into sharing some of my stories and what has worked or has not it is important to understand guineas are worth the trouble. They are incredible at pest control, they eat all kinds of bugs and they do it all day long. Almost like they form a skirmish line, (for any of you military guys out there you will understand), they proceed to eat any bug that dares cross their path. Now I can attest to this since successfully keeping eight alive and trying to grow the flock currently our bug population has drastically decreased. Especially ticks which anyone that is familiar with the southern Ozarks that is a Godsend.

The next thing is they do get rid of snakes from deterring them, killing them and eating them. They seem to hate snakes as much as I do, another benefit that I have noticed. Upon moving here, I did have quite a problem with copperheads that I have had to deal with myself. Also my cats seemed to have a personal vendetta against all snakes and loved to eat them. Between all three there has been less snakes that have dared to slither around.

The last quirky thing about guineas people like to talk about is their warning sounds. Now this is true they do give a warning, the only problem is they give a warning for absolutely everything. Whether it is a leaf that passes by, a distant tractor or a fart in the wind they are going to let out their deafening cries to let you know of the impending danger.

Now going forward I will share from the beginning what has seemed to be a saga in itself. The adventure started when my parents decided to buy some guineas. The agreement was that they buy them and I take care of them enjoying the benefits of the bug assassins. Any of you who have owned guineas can probably guess who won out in that agreement. The day came when the guineas arrived and I went to pick them up. Immediately I realized something was not right, there were twenty-five guinea keets in the box and there was only supposed to be twenty. I figured this was a mistake so I called the farm that hatched them and the lady laughed and said, "Oh honey your going to want those extra five", she wished me good luck and that was that. The call should of been my first clue that something wasn't right, but nope it was not.

I brought them home and got them settled into their brooder sitting on my kitchen table, as I had not married my wife yet and was a bachelor, it seemed like the perfect place. I had the whole set up, plenty of space, heat lamp, water dispenser and food dispenser. The first week had no issues, it was nice to hear their chirps and watch them run around and grow. My plan was to let them sit there for a few weeks as I do with my chickens because I have found the more time you spend around your chickens/flock the friendlier they are. My original chickens run to me when they see me coming. I even have a rooster, for months upon being moved to the coop, wait for me at the door and refuse to go inside until I rubbed his belly. This earned him a long life where he will never wind up on my dinner plate so I figured doing the same with the guineas would not be much of a problem.

This was my first area of misunderstanding. I will offer some advice, do not keep your guineas in the house for longer then a week. Instead have a safe place set up where you can allow them to start. I don't care if its a brooder in the coop, barn or anywhere just get them out. The start of the second week I noticed there was not a time that they were not standing in their own food, scratching at it essentially throwing it everywhere and making a complete mess. Their water... good luck, they kept knocking it over and trying to sit in it. Seriously, I think they purposely went to the water to poop in it. Then the smell hit. I do not mind chickens and their smell never really bothers me, guineas on the other hand are disgusting, I cannot explain it but the smell is horrendous. If that is not bad enough they begin to start screeching all day and night, nothing I seemed to do made a difference. The final straw was when I came home from work at the end of the second week and they had already flown onto the heater and were up and out of the brooder sitting on the kitchen table crying like little banshees.

At that point they were banished to the barn which I had built a massive brooder with chicken wire on top. It was a decent set up and a place where they could grow, play, roost and move into that "teenage" stage. I successfully moved all twenty-five outside and was pretty happy with that. After the first day outside I came home and noticed I had my first casualty, they had trampled one of the smaller ones. I was frustrated because I hate losing an animal unless it serves a purpose, this one did not even though I do not think I could have done anything to avoid this. Sadly, my frustration would only surely grow but I did not know this yet.

The next couple days there was not much excitement besides them throwing their food around as if there were trying to have one giant food fight with each other and of course defecating in their water. The end of the third week I had a few sneak out of some gaps in the chicken wire covering the sides. This was quite "fun" to run around in the evening in my barn trying to catch tiny guineas that seemed to be enjoying the game of chase. Finally, I got them all into the brooder and fixed all the gaps by wrapping cardboard and stapling it to fill the gaps.

Most people would say that this would be not a bad start to raising guineas but the next few weeks which stretched into months seemed to be a struggle that I was already destined to loose. I believe it was at the end of the fourth or start of the fifth I was introduced to the absolute stupidity of the guineas that left me sitting there watching in amazement. Little did I know that this was only the beginning. One instance I will share later made me laugh harder then I have in a very long time. Anyone that knows me will tell you that seeing me laugh is a bit of a rarity, not that I do not like to laugh, I just do not find a lot of mainstream or worldly humor to be funny.

So as usual I got home and was making my rounds, take care of the chickens, take care of the dogs and go check on the guineas. I opened the door to the barn and immediately noticed that there was a guinea that had flown into the cover of the brooder and fit perfectly between the gaps, got stuck and broke his neck. Bummed at being greeted with this I went on to get the thing out. To my surprise I got it out and while standing up I watched another fly right next to the one I just removed get stuck and completely panic breaking its neck before I could realize what was happening. Now I was frustrated, it is after 9:30 pm and I have two dead birds. I remove the second and take both outside to dispose of the tiny lifeless bodies. Upon walking back in I watched as another flew and did the same thing. I stood there in amazement not knowing exactly what was going on. Wondering if these creatures were trying to die or if I was doing something wrong, Eventually I snapped out of it, pulled the cover off extremely frustrated. I hate having animals die and not being able to stop it. My decision was to speed up the exterior coop I was slowly building, meaning it was getting built that night. I went outside grabbed my tools, set up lights and began to build and finish the coop because I was determined not to lose another bird that night as I had lost three in a single night. Below you will see the structure I built, a simple triangle with everything you see being recycled from other projects. I created an open landscape of a coop with roosts galore because I wanted them to have plenty of space to get off the ground knowing how guineas loved to roost. Also, I was not looking for them to be egg layers so there was no need for nesting boxes, more roosts was my decision. I got it built and successfully moved my remaining twenty guineas out there. Set them up with food/water and sat down at way past 2:00 am to see how they settled in. They loved it, flew to the roosts, jostled for positions and settled right in. Satisfied that they were safe for the night I went to bed and tried to get some sleep.

Built next to the chicken coop to help encourage them to stay by the coop and not fly off but also keep them separate from my hens.

The next month or so went with very minimal issues they seemed to enjoy their new home. For the first month I kept them inside the coop so they would learn that this was their safe spot. If you have chickens or guineas I would highly recommend this when you move them to the coop. Let them explore the coop but keep them inside for at least a month. Then move them to coop and chicken run but do not let them free range until they have been outside for two months, that way they learn where they need to go at night. They also seem to stay closer to the coop this way., except the guineas in my first experience. After that first month I opened the door and let the guineas free range. I figured since they were by the chickens they would stay with the chickens but man I could not have been more wrong. They started going across the property. I would hear them in the neighbors yard, essentially anywhere but around the coop. They did come back each evening and only slightly needed some pushing into the coop at night.

I started having some issues with them roaming when I would notice one was missing, this started once a week. One was just gone with no signs of it anywhere. I would look and could not find a body, it was like it just vanished. It was not until I was on a walk of the property and realized there was a body of a guinea in my pine trees. That's when I realized that they were getting picked off by a hawk. I lost three this way before I saw the hawk go after one and after scaring the hawk away, I never saw it again. For any of you that have been counting I was now down to seventeen guineas. I remember being thankful that i received those extra guineas now. I was upset that I was losing guineas but glad that I still had seventeen remaining.

Another month went by before I lost another two guineas. This time it was not a predator but they just seemed determined to die. I was going out to bring the birds some treats,

(suggestion, give your ladies(laying hens), some treats and they will start to cluck in excitement and you are almost sure to see an increase in egg production), I tossed the treats in and I watched as one guinea got so excited it took off on a flight pattern that was impressively low to the ground. The issue was I had a chicken run with a chain link fence. Instead of going to the door or over the top it decided to try and fly through the fence. Which ended in a dead guinea. You would think they would learn from example but no, another followed suit and rammed the fence shortly after thus ending its life like its companion. I then had to stand by the fence and direct these dumb birds away from flying into the fence as I was sure that another was going to try the same thing.

Thankfully I did not have another issue that day. Some time passed and I was maintaining a solid fifteen. Then another day one of my dogs, Bjorn, came running out of the woods with a guinea in his mouth. At first I was ready to get quite mad at the dog before I realized the bird was stiff as a board and had been dead for at least several hours. This happened three or four more times. He would just bring me a stiff guinea out of the woods. I could not figure out what was going on and was beginning to feel like I was losing the battle as the guineas just kept disappearing.

I was at ten guineas when I witnessed something that I mentioned earlier. Something that made me laugh, I mean really laugh, like one of those laughs that come from the belly and just do not want to stop. I did lose a guinea but I was not laughing at the death rather just the entire circumstance and not being able to believe what I just saw. So there I was sitting on my pier enjoying watching my lake, just relaxing looking at the sky when I heard my flock of morons come squawking along. They came over to honk in my face for awhile as if they did not realize I had been sitting there for quite some time. Eventually they all started to head for the coop except one. It veered off honking its little head off, it proceeded to head straight for the lake, got in the water and started swimming across the widest stretch. Honking and swimming when it reached the middle it dove under the water which at this point I was watching completely baffled. As guineas can swim but they are not waterfowl they only tend to swim out of necessity for example if they fall in. I waited for the guinea to come back up but it never did. It is like it just went out for one last swim and decided it was done. I could not help but laugh because of the ridiculousness of this. To this day I have not seen a single guinea on the water, they pay no interest to it besides to get a drink occasionally.

After this, I maintained the remainder for a little bit before losing them to a mink that made a home on the lake. Minks are nasty creatures and I was having a heck of a time getting rid of it before it finally made a mistake and decided to tangle with my dog, Bjorn. He about dragged the thing out of its home and if it had not wiggled loose it would have been my pup's dinner. It did get away and from that day on I never saw the mink again. Sadly though the mink successfully had taken out seven of the guineas. I started with twenty-five and was left with two in less then a year!

I was beyond frustrated and to make matters worse the coop I built them flooded in our rainy season and the guinea manure backed things up so bad it was essentially uninhabitable. The two guineas would cry when they went in there and it was one of the saddest things I have heard. At this point I did not care, I shoved them in the coop with the chickens and kept them all in together for a month. From that moment I have not lost a single guinea since. We have now grown our flock slowly from the last two guineas standing to a total of eight. They are characters and all have grown up with the chickens. We even have a pure white one that may be the toughest bird I have ever seen. It has refused the coop during a tornado, one of the worst thunderstorms, an ice storm and a blizzard.

The guineas have taught me and us a tremendous amount. One was, keep the birds together, it is simpler in the long run and they all form a flock of sorts. Which also offers added protection for the birds. Having a brooder in the house is essential for the early days of any bird but having a built-in brooder inside the coop was a decision that came out of the guineas, something that I definitely recommend.

Some other things to keep in mind which is not a guinea-specific thing, the flow of water is pertinent to always keep in mind. The reason the guinea coop backed up is because all the water was flowing to it and there was no way for the water to escape. I built the chicken coop up off the ground on posts so the water would flow. The guineas coop I did not and that resulted in a flooded coop covered in manure. I eventually just tore down the guinea hutch and built an addition to the chicken coop which has proved to be quite needed. I also installed a drain to help eliminate water backing up in the chicken run in the future and to encourage draining. That is something that has paid off greatly in the last year.

Over all, guineas are livestock that we will probably always have. In a weird way I like them but at the same time dread the stupidity of the creatures. When people mention the dodo bird and say it went extinct because of their stupidity, I would argue that they are still living just under a different name as the "Guinea". They rival for stupidity on a regular basis but they also provide essential things to a ranch. They do provide plenty of eye rolls and frustrations at times, but finding a way to keep them amongst the other birds seems to lessen this. At the end of the day they will always be morons with wings and we are currently attempting to double our flock. Let's just hope our survival rate continues to be better then the first round...

Looking at me through my window.