My husband found this lone guinea languishing in a tiny little cage in a pet store and decided to rescue it and bring it home. I was never particularly interested in guineas and don’t know much about them (can’t even tell for sure if the one we have is a male or a female), but I was taken with this bird’s quirky appearance and how easygoing it is around the chickens – to be honest I expected something like a blood feud in the coop, but to my surprise the guinea fitted right in, eating and drinking with the flock and squeezing in between the chickens when the time comes to roost for the night.
Now I’m hooked and would like to get a couple more of these funny birds as soon as we have the chance. As a bonus, I found out that guineas are actually kosher and there is a tradition of eating them in some Jewish communities (we don’t bother raising birds for meat, but we might eat the eggs).
The only downside is the racket it tends to make, but on the other hand it helped us spot a sneaky fox a couple of days ago! Luckily, we don’t have neighbors near enough to be bothered.
You are fortunate you aren’t rising guineas for meat! They are VERY intelligent (no a “bird-brain” by any means) and will catch on quickly when one of their number disappears. I have known people who have had to shot them out of trees with a rifle, because the birds are too wily to allow themselves to be caught.
They are marvelous “watch dogs”. As you said, very noisy, but if you have no near neighbours, then it will work out.
LikeLike
Wow! I’d love to have a few more to see how they interact!
LikeLike
I don’t know if you have ticks (blood sucking insects) there or not but these birds will decimate any that may be around…
LikeLike
We do have plenty and would love to get rid of them!
LikeLike