Guineas.
The elusive and mysterious guinea.
So we bought these cute little guineas from the chicken guy I spoke about before.
We bought two of each color and we have no idea which are male and which are female. It doesn’t really matter. They are here to eat bugs. Guineas require upwards of 80% of their diet to be protein (bugs) while chickens are closer to 20%. In other words they are bug eating machines. I swear they hardly lift their heads to look around they are so busy munching on bugs.
The only thing is guineas are rather migratory and unsocial (with people anyway) creatures. We no sooner got them home then they ran off into the weeds. I guess it helps that we have a lot of weeds.
But it just so happens that the other day they made an appearance. I ran to get my camera and took as many pictures as I could. Who knows when we will see them again.
We hear them once in awhile in the brush but catching a glimpse of them has proven to be futile.
So I snapped away. Click. click. The guineas went on eating only glancing at me occasionally.
And then they slipped back into the grass and I have not seen them since.
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I really like guinea fowl… I have hopes of acquiring some also when we go in to purchase our chickens.
Around here we call them ‘guard dogs’ because of the ruckus they make when strangers come up. They might decide to hang out closer to you guys as they grow some.
I hope you guys have a great day!
Love,
Chas
Katie :)
They’re super cute! Lavenders have always been my favorite guinea color. Congrats on having some lavenders. My son Frank’s favorite is pied and you have one of those too. Yay!
We’ve had guineas for years. Keep in mind if they’re out free ranging that when they’re that little they are VERY susceptible to wetness. Even with their mommies we lose handfuls of them every year when it rains. I’ve had years where we put them in tractors so that when it rains I can go out and convince them (they’re not that smart honestly) to go inside. Those are the only years I have no losses. This year we had a large batch with the Mommy and lost almost all of them during some heavy rainy periods. 11 down to 2 in a few days. Sigh. And yours are really tiny so just keep that in mind. They often when they’re that little just sit out in the rain until they die. Ugh those guineas. LOL. So be careful about that.
They’re loud but really only when they’re adolescent. They grow out of it. Once seasoned adults they really quiet way down and are not obnoxious at all. But when they’re teens, my husband tells me every day he’s killing them all. Especially since this last batch decided that whenever he was outside they should follow him around yelling at him. As dumb as they are they do obey when I tell them to torture Clay :D
And honestly ours never stay close to home all the time. They do live here and eat here but they wander pretty far consistently. Our best luck has been raising them in a tractor with baby chicks. Ours even go in the coop at night when we do it that way. They still stray far far, all the way up the road to the highway lately even to get hit by cars. Lovely.
They super cute and fun and loud and I love them. Congratulations! And their eggs are yummy and the kids will love stumbling upon random guinea nests out in the bush.
Kim
The lady we get eggs from has guineas. Their eggs are small and very hard shelled and tasty. We like them for omelettes. Yours are very cute, too, and I’m sure are getting fat on all that buugy land! Do you have ticks in MO? If so, I’ll bet they will sure help lower that population!
We had those birds growing up. They can turn into watch-dogs, too. If they’re in the trees and hear somebody coming, they squawk.