Guinea fowl can be sort of an exotic addition to a homestead. You will hear many glamorous things about them. Things like:
- Guinea fowl will eat ticks
- Guineas will take care of problems like snakes and rats
- Guineas are easier on the yard than chickens
- They don’t scratch as much or won’t go after your garden
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And, yes, most of that is true.
Guinea fowl can eat ticks and even snakes, sometimes. (Read all about that on Do Guineas Eat Snakes?)
They are somewhat easier on your land. Though they will still dust bathe and peck at your garden veggies if given the chance.
But in the interest of full disclosure you really should know the things that they do that aren’t so glamorous about guinea fowl.
5 Reasons Not to Own Guinea Fowl
(Again, this is from my personal experience! Really- read the comments- lots of great information there!)
1. Guinea Fowl 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!
2. Guineas Can Be Bullies
All birds have a pecking order. 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 guinea fowl 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…
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3. Guineas 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 might 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.
Related Reading: 6 Things Your Chicken Coop Must Have!
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 (Yes, you can eat them). 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. Guinea hens 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!
Related Reading: Can You Eat Guinea Fowl? (and Guinea 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.
Now, I don’t want to turn anyone off of getting guineas if they really want them. Like any addition to your homestead, this is a personal decision. We had them here for about a year, and I could live with all but one of the things I just listed.
I have 5 kids- I can tone out loud noises! We live pretty far out in the country with lots of other farms around and neighbors didn’t seem to mind the roaming. I am willing to let them multiply and allow their stupidity to reduce their numbers.
But, I can’t live with the bullying. Chickens are important around here- both as a productive member of the farm and a beloved pet to my children. And, ultimately, we let the guineas go because of how mean they were to our chickens. If you want to learn more about raising guineas, you can check out my article on Raising Guinea Fowl for Beginners or the eBook Guinea Fowl: Complete Guide to Raising Guinea Fowl can help you learn absolutely everything about this unusual bird!
Tips for Raising Guinea Fowl Successfully
You don’t have to end up with problem guineas! Here are a couple of tips to try and prevent some of these issues with your guinea fowl flock!
*Raise your guinea fowl from keets- starting a flock in their permanent home is always best
*Keep them locked in their home/coop for at least 6 weeks before letting them roam (another reason to raise them from keets!)
*If you will be cohabitating with chickens- raise them from babies together (this didn’t work for us)
*Buy quality birds. Breeding matters- even with guineas! If you want good birds, buy GOOD birds
*Realize that guineas and chickens are not the same. Guineas must be free range and the are less domesticated than chickens. Don’t fight their nature
If you decide that you want to ignore my advice, or like many my advice has inspired you to go and get some guinea fowl for yourself, here’s where to get them:
If you want to mail order, Cackle Hatchery sells guinea fowl. There is a 5 keet minimum.
You can also order from Meyer Hatchery. Here’s their assortment of guineas.
But I actually suggest searching for a local source. Guinea keets are very fragile, so picking them up local reduces the stress of shipment. Check Facebook Market Place, local Facebook livestock swap groups, or Craigslist.
Want to learn more about the types of poultry you can add to your homestead? Check out my article on Poultry Alternatives.
**NOTE: Since the original publication of this article, I have received a lot of comments and heard from many other people who have raised guinea fowl. I would like to add that the 5 reasons I wrote about below are in line with MY experience with guineas. They will not happen for everyone, but I shared my experiences in order to let those who are on the fence about adding guineas to their homestead about the possibilities. I encourage everyone to read through the comments. There are a lot of stories there shared by people either with similar experiences or contradictory experiences. And if you have raised guineas, I would love to hear your stories too!**
I’d just like to kindly disagree with this entire article…I will number my responses like you numbered your reasons:
1.) yes, they’re loud. If you live on a farm/homestead… so what? The goats and donkeys are louder than my guineas! The noise also alerts me to anything out of the ordinary. I’ve saved chicks from being snake meals on several occasions because guineas alerted me to the snake in my chicken coop. Their voice is part of their value.
2.) Guineas could be called bullies by someone who doesn’t understand them, I call them the flock police. Their assertive nature in the flock prevents my cocky roosters from sparring. Guineas break that up instantly. They are peacemakers and won’t tolerate others being bullies. They also don’t tolerate predators. They can eat big things like mice and small snakes and their aggressive nature turns a lot of predators off, keeping your flock safer.
3.) yes, they will roam. I cannot say this enough.. RAISE THEM WITH YOUR CHICKENS. They will train just as easily as a chicken will to go inside the coop at night. Mine roost there with my hens, it has a covered roof.
4.) in my experience, guineas aren’t near as interested in sex as chickens. I rarely witness my guineas breeding whereas my roosters are basically walking penises. I’ve never had problems with guineas running off and nesting, whereas my hens do it all the time. For me, chickens are way more of a headache than Guineas.
5.) some call Guineas stupid, i just call them simple. In their own way, they’re extremely intelligent. They have a keen sense for danger whereas a naive chicken does not. They just think as a unit, not as an individual. In the wild, they’re African plains birds where flock instinct is vital to their survival.
Some people just don’t understand them, and for that reason they aren’t for everyone.
I feel this way too, thank you for your comment to hers .
I just got 15 guinea keets this early summer I love haveing them around 2 acre barn yard .Had them many years ago and know 78’back in to it again .I did buy large coyote trap couple weeks ago Anyone know what’s a good bait thanks Ron
I am in agreement. I also agree, though, that everyone has their own likes and dislikes. It sounds like Sarah has had some pretty rotten luck with guineas, which I’m sorry to hear. I have four guineas and I love watching them. I also own goats and sadly, a couple of my goats are much more obnoxious than my guineas. Considering that my idiot roosters will crow at one a.m., I could care less about the incessant honking that my guineas do during the day.
My biggest fascination with these birds is that they look like little dinosaurs running around the (very small) farm. They’re so ugly they’re wonderful. They definitely have a hive mind, and my husband and I crack up when they’re all roaming around together, one of them gets spooked and the next thing you know there’s a bunch of honking, screeching guineas racing across the backyard only to take flight the rest of the way to the barn.
All of the things Sarah noted in her blog are very true, sad to say. The roaming was a surprise to me this summer (it’s the first time I’ve owned guineas) when my neighbor stopped for a visit and let me know that if I’m looking for my guineas at night and they’re not home – they’re probably at her place. Apparently they visited her daily … crazy birds. She’d owned guineas before so wasn’t upset, just startled when she went outside and scared one of them and they started their honking and running.
I would eventually like to own more guineas but I am hesitant to do so – I don’t know how much of the honking my mother or husband can take before they snap and demand a guinea-less property.
Need info about cutting the feathers on one wing to prevent them from flying.
Cutting the wing on my Guineas never worked. The little sap suckers could still fly & pretty good too.
We raise 4 guineas, three female and one male. All grown up. They were bought grown-up. We put the guineas along with other grown up hens and cocks. Within a week they adjusted. But no socializing. Well, we enjoy the noise they make. In the evenings we do have some problem in diverting them into the cage. For laying eggs, they search for some bush, unlike the hens. We do eat the eggs just as we eat the hens’ eggs.
And it will end their life
I live in southern Massachusetts we got guinea’s because all my kids and myself got Lyme in the same year. Since then no Lyme and no pulling ticks off the dogs. I agree with noise level is obnoxious, as far as brains I agree with you, our male picked a fight with a pit bull and sadly lost.
I love them and will have them in our homestead for a long time to come
Yep, noisy, flighty, sometimes mean, not really bright, but they’ll run a fast 100 yard dash to kill and eat a grasshopper and thus I’m very forgiving for all else.
OK …. our keets just hatched … or pipped(?) … they are outside and scrambling around the nest in the woods. ….. HELP !!!! WHAT DO WE DO? Do we just leave them alone and let mama keep them together and bring them into the pen? ….. or do we need to try and find them all…. there were 23 eggs. To add to the confusion there were a bunch of quail with them.
Was wondering if a city could set hundreds of these birds out for the purpose of eating ticks. Can they survive in the wild without a coop?
My mom lives in a memory care facility just outside of Knoxville. They have three Guineas that live and roam freely on their property, and have for years. They just showed up there, don’t have a coop, and survive just fine year after year. They can be loud, but most of the time they are pretty quiet and mind their own business.
I love my Guineas. Had 8 adults beginning of spring. Down to 3. They roam free all the time. Not sure what killed the 5. The guineas come to the back door and peck on the window for bread crumbs. They let me know if coyotes, bobcat, rattlesnakes are close by. They aren’t too bright but entertaining.
While I completely understand that these reasons and experiences are completely valid, I would like to share my experience as well.
I have two Guineas as of right now (we HAD three but he disappeared without a trace some time ago… we suspect a hawk or something), and I absolutely ADORE them!
Short version is, my boyfriend and I have nicknamed them “bird puppies” because of their tendency to follow us diligently around the yard, come when called, and play chase. I like the noises they make and it seems to have successfully kept away predators. I can see how they aren’t for everyone, but I love their personalities. They bring such life to my flock.
Noise: Yes, they are loud. I personally love the sounds they make, but I’ve also been dealing with my treasured Sun Conure (also a screamer) for the last 4 years, so maybe I’m a bit used to noisy birds. One of my neighbors has complained in passing, but they don’t seem to mind TOO much. I do very much like that my Guineas, on multiple occasions, have alerted me to a feral cat in my yard and scared off a hawk or two with their chatter.
Friendliness: I purchased three fairly young Guinea keets, a peacock chick, and 2 regular chicks at the same time. As such, they were raised together. I, along with my boyfriend and roommates, socialized and handled the birds pretty frequently. It helped that their brooder was inside by the kitchen, so every day they were with us.
We DID have to separate the baby chickens, as the guineas grew much faster and we were concerned that sorting out the pecking order would eventually kill our chicks. They never needed to be separated from our peacock chick and the 4 of them were very attached. We essentially put a smaller cage inside of the brooder, so they could all still live together (despite the vicious pecking order, all of those birds were extremely attached and would call for one another if separated). This worked very well for us and our Guineas integrated smoothly into our flock.
Also, we’ve nicknamed them “bird puppies.” They follow me and my boyfriend around the yard, come when we call them, and like to play chase with use just like our dogs! At one point, I was leaving my yard and, when I didn’t allow them to follow me outside of the fence, they ran the fence line chattering at me until I came back! They don’t like to sleep in the coop, so they sleep on a shelf by our sliding glass door and, while sleeping there, they do allow me to pet them.
Wandering: We just now are coming into this issue. We have a 2 acre property and all of a sudden, our Guineas have taken to spending the morning in our neighbor’s yard. After an unfortunate incident involving our duck and their dog, our neighbor is very considerate in checking the yard before releasing his dogs, but we HAVE had to jump the fence (with permission) and retrieve our birds. For whatever reason, they would fly over the fence, and then FREAK OUT and run the fence like they were trapped in the neighbor’s yard. Since the last time it happened, I haven’t seen them do it again but we are on the look out and not sure how to remedy this without clipping their wings and leaving them at risk of predators.
All-in-all, I treasure them. They were a wonderful addition to my flock.
We have guinea fowl and they are highly entertaining. We live on a 7-acre property with a few different guinea flocks down the road from us. They all stay on the property and roam free. We have six guineas, one we got from someone who was downsizing and the other 5 we raised from hatchlings. They all stay together and are really good at keeping the turkeys away from our smaller birds and alerting us when hawks are looking for some lunch.
Sure, they can be pushy with our chooks and sometimes chase them around when we are chucking bread crumbs out of the window but our geese and other chooks all do this too, so it isn’t that different.
I love them all, they all have names and are the funniest things on planet earth. Although they are really loud, their squawks cannot compete with the geese and the little Jack Russel down the road.
I would 100% get guinea fowl. As mentioned before, very good at alerting when predators are looking at our birds like they are food. The guinea fowls almost never eat our chook food and their entire diet is made out of the bugs and critters crawling around on the property. It is very amusing to watch all six of them chase this tiny little beetle around.
I highly recommend getting these birds!