Hi Renee, I have raised a lot of guineas in the past, thousands of them. I learned early that you have to keep at least 1 male for every 4 guinea hens or the males will beat the tar out of the chickens.
People will tell you that you need to have one male for every female and this just isn't so. I have had several males that set up breeding groups of as many as ten hens to one male and all of their eggs were fertile.
I can remember a neighbor who was told by some person who didn't know
get up from sickem that he had to have his mallard ducks in pairs as they mated this way in the wild. I tried to tell him that 3 drakes for 15 hens would be more than enough but he thought I was giving him bad advice.
He had all of these young drakes on the place and when one of the little hens went from her nest to the swimming hole to wash off she would be attacked by all of these drakes and would often be drowned by them. After 3 months he had 15 drakes and only one little hen with 4 ducklings left.
In every group there is going to be a guinea male who thinks that he runs the show despite what you think. I have ran as many as 300 breeder guineas on free range and had few problems. Then one day an over bearing male with a bad attitude will start trouble for you.
He may start beating up on chickens, other guineas, try to take the rest of the flock into the trees at dusk,or even kill kittens. He knows better but wants to test the limit of your patience.
When I kept a lot of guineas I also kept the metal scalding bucket handy because I might have to butcher a guinea or two on a minute's notice.
Since I always had extra of everything when a male started throwing these tantrums to defy the normally good order of things I would walk to the house and return with a 22 caliber rifle and shoot him in the head. You would be surprised at how fast a group of follower guineas will run to get to the roosts in the chicken house when you kill their ring leader.
I try to tell everyone who is new to raising guineas and also has a flock of chickens that they need to cull out their guineas every year to just a few males [roughly a ratio of 1 male to 3 hens] and then keep a close eye out for the trouble makers. When a male guinea is busy with several hens it gives him little time to cause problems elsewhere.
If you have nothing but rooster guineas and have them running with a small flock of large chickens you will have nothing but trouble until you separate them, bring in a few guinea hens, and finally get rid of the worst males of the group. It is a horrible idea to have guineas and bantams housed together. The guinea males will usually beat the little roosters to death and wool the little hens to the point that they are too stressed to lay.
The exception to this rule is if you have raised ALL of your guineas under these bantam hens then you won't have any problems. If you hatch all of your guineas under Silkie bantam hens and let them raise these little rascals them you can hardly tell there is a guinea on the place. It is a matter of nature, nurture, and imprinting that changes their attitudes. Dean
Below is a link to Show Me Silkies & Stuff where a young man raises several species of domestics and ornamental fowl. He raises his guinea keets under Silkie hens and as you can see there aren't many problems.
http://showmesilkies.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=870006
----------------------------------------------------------
"roundofappaws@..." <roundofappaws@...> wrote:
I had an awful time with my guineas and went to the Guinea Forum for advice. Seems that males in number larger than the guinea females will take to attacking the chickens. I had four males, couldn't find any females (unless I wanted to chance another set of chicks). I was also told that if I caged them for awhile their hormones would settle (they were a year old). They were in a run with the chickens for 4 months. Every time I turned them out, whether it be one or four they attacked the hens. I made the mistake of turning all four out the first time and they immediately ganged up on a young hen. BTW, they all had access to free range, but the guineas never left the yard except to pound around on the roof.
In the end I got rid of them. Now, I don't know if the disturbance you are having = egg production drop, tis that time of year for less.
Good luck!
Renee
S CA
CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment