Guinea Fowl

[Toknarok]

          Does anyone else on this forum keep these noisy, chattering birds?

[Crossy]

Yup we have Guineas, noisy so-and-so's they are too.

 

They do lay delicious eggs (if you can find them) and eat all manner of creepy crawlies.

 

[jak2002003]

I used to keep them.  Sold the lot.  Thought my roosters and geese were loud... they are so quiet compared to the guinea fowl.  

 

It was not really the volume of the noise... it was the monotonous calling... from sun up till sunset... over and over with no break at all, and they would all gather outside out bedroom window, making the noise and pecking on the glass each morning to wake us up to go feed them.

 

I would never recommend anyone keep these birds, unless they are deaf.  

 

[Toknarok]

     OK fellers fair enough, either you love or hate them. I don't think that there's any doubt that they a great table bird.

     The reason I asked is 'can you tell the difference between the males and females? They look alike and are more or less the same size.They say that the calls are different according to their sex, they all sound somewhat similar. (Youtube doesn't help much).

      I have seen both turkeys and cockerels mounting a guinea F. hen.

      A few days ago a a couple of fowl eggs hatched and produced a strange chick. It wasn't like the normal fowl chick (keets) but was very black in feather colour.

      I was wondering if this was a hybrid. Google states only birda from the same family can interbreed. Do fowls have similar genomes to turkeys or chickens?

 

 

[Crossy]

I've never managed to tell the boys from the girls, the calls are different but once the identified bird has merged with the others ...

 

We also have some "white" guineas, keets seem to come out in either shade. I've never seen a black one and certainly not seen anything untoward going on with the guineas and our assorted chooks.

 

[cornishcarlos]

We have Guineas too.. Our numbers are dwindling each rainy season though, down to 4 now.. Agree with Crossy, lovely eggs but a bugger to locate in the plantation before the cobra eats them all !! 

Beautiful birds and do a good job of warning about lurking dangers..

[Crossy]

5 hours ago, Arjen said:

And I heard they eat loads of ticks and flees. Much more then regular chickens do.....

 

Any amount of creepy-crawlies get converted into eggs.

 

We used to get loads of baby millipedes (no bite but a bind to clean up) as soon as it rained, since we've had the guineas I've not seen one.