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
This site contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I may earn a commission. Please see my disclosure page for more information about cookies collected and our privacy policy.
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…
Make your homestead dreams come true! The Homestead Goal Planner will help you prioritize your life and your homestead goals so that you can make steady progress toward creating the homestead you’ve always dreamed of!
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’m interested in getting Guinea fowl, primarily for controlling thick tick populations on our property. I grew up on a farm with many chickens, ducks etc, so I understand the husbandry aspects.
However, we were told that, yes, they eat up to 4000 ticks per day, but they poop live ticks…the ticks survive their digestive tracts. This seems far fetched to me. Does anyone have information about this?
Watching to see if this is answered by someone experienced. I too have been thinking about purchasing for the same reasons. I grew up with a neighbor that raised them and the entire flock roosted between omin the trees between our homes so I know how loud they are.
Does anyone have an answer to the question above about ticks surviving after being eaten and being pooped out alive ? Thank you.
Ticks cannot survive the digestive tract of fowl, the gizzard grinds even the toughest exoskeletons up into a thick liquid
after that tick gets eaten he is history, no surviving.
Hello. It doesn’t look like anyone has answered this question but since no one has, I took the liberty to look further. This site looks reputable and the authors explanation makes sense.
https://www.mailorderpoultry.com/fact-check-can-guinea-fowl-digest-ticks/
I had not heard of people thinking that ticks couldn’t be digested as free-range animals usually have the good sense to eat what is edible and nutritious for them vs. and animal captive in a pen that is desperate for any variety of diet.
I hope this helps, I had been confident in guinea fowl capability but after seeing this message thought I better look further. I hope it helps those who were asking as well.
We are entering our first spring with guinea fowl. We have 4. We let them free range over our 10 acres. The neighbors have 20 acres each, but their homes are at the far ends, so we have lots of room for the fowl to roam. They roost on their own near the chicken coop (where we kept them the first 2 weeks). They live most of their lives within 300 feet of the goat houses and chicken coop. That’s probably because they like to eat the goat feed that I put out from time to time. They don’t live IN the chicken coop, so we will see how they get along with the chickens. We just put some new young chickens in the coop and chicken yard.
Right now they are sitting on a large communal nest – 2 fowl will sit on it at at time. There are at least 50 eggs in the nest.
I can attest to the fact that they are loud. I don’t mind it. But they are loud in the middle of the night and they are all loud at once. They are also tough. I have Nigerian Dwarf Milk Goats and these birds will run those goats… chase them, etc. The goats can be loud too, particularly if they want to be milked. But the goats aren’t loud in the middle of the night. The guineas are. You get used to it.
So this article is accurate. I, however, love them. I think they are great. They require no feed, no watering, no fuss. They are very heavy and meaty birds, and I don’t mind shooting and eating them if too many are around. I haven’t don’t it yet, but I suspect I will once these eggs hatch and grow.
Do guinea’s bother people? Like…do they terrorize people or get aggressive with them? Do they jump up on you car and scratch the paint?
Not in my experience. They are generally friendly. They like to admire themselves in the chrome bumper on my truck, but they have never claimed on it.
I throw mine a handful of white millet (which they love) when I see them, so now they come over to me. Makes it easier to get them in the pen.
I’m planning on trying bell training with them next.
Will gunniea eat small wormy like portugese millipedes that curl when disturbed? I’m deciding between guniea and barred rock chickens. My property is infested and I’ve had enough of them.
We have only one guinea – he just arrived from goodness knows where one day. Should we get him a friend (of like kind) or will he be happy enough on his own? Apparently he was originally seen with another 5 wandering the country lanes but they have disappeared.