Episode 45 of the podcast is up! Listen over on Podbean, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is all about the adventures of Ginny, the Guinea Fowl hen, and also covers some guinea fowl facts. Is this interesting bird a good fit for your homestead or farm? Tune in and find out!
Sources/links of interest for this episode:
Mother Earth News: Raising Guinea Fowl, a Low Maintenance Flock
Modern Farmer: Guinea Fowl, Your Overlooked Backyard Beauty
Hobby Farms: Getting Guineas? Make Sure You Train Them Right
Wikipedia: Guinea Fowl
Cindy Lou Willson's Youtube Channel: Female Guinea Keet "Buck Wheat" Call
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Hive Updates
The Hive Jive episode 101 covered the tradition of ‘telling the bees’, which has been practiced throughout the long history of beekeeping. This custom involves telling the bees of major events in the beekeeper’s family life, from births to marriages to deaths. In the episode, John offers a great overview of this beautiful tradition, while sharing a recent personal loss. I found it to be very moving and recommend that you give it a listen. Find it wherever you get your podcasts, or click here.
On the last episode, I mentioned that I’d tried to mark my only surviving colony’s queen and accidentally ended up coating her wings. I was extremely worried that her girls might turn against her due to the change in her scent, or that she might die from all that paint (and possibly stress). I am extremely relieved to report that she is alive and well! She is laying eggs like a champ and this colony continues to build up nicely. I am so grateful that my mistake did not harm this beautiful queen!
I have had some drama in the apiary, which you might have seen if you follow my instagram account. Long story short, I received my package of bees with a Carniolan queen dead and dying. Those bees still alive were in very bad shape. I installed them in my top bar hive with sugar syrup, fondant, and dry sugar. I wanted to give that handful of surviving bees a chance. Annoyingly, it was a cold day and night, and I found all the remaining bees dead in the morning. I believed the queen had also died but, when I brought her inside, she warmed up and started moving around. Acting quickly, I placed her in my still queenless nuc, and checked back in 24hrs. To my utter surprise and joy, she was alive and well and they had already accepted her!
What killed the package bees? At first, I thought they might have starved to death as the syrup can they are shipped with was completely empty. However, spraying the survivors with syrup didn’t really help; maybe a handful recovered and flew off. To make things worse, the pile of dead bees I ended up with weren’t fully dead. If you brushed them, they’d move a little but they couldn’t eat or fly. It was awful. That behaviour could be end stage starvation but it also made me wonder if they had been exposed to something harmful. Either way, I made a claim through USPS and I am waiting to hear back.
As for my Carniolan queen, I checked on her after a week and found two worrying things: 1/ no eggs. 2/ capped queen cells. Despite the bees still taking care of her, she does not appear to be laying and the colony seems to be preparing to replace her. After doing some reading, I’ve decided to give her another week as I found some reports that a weakened queen can take up to 2 weeks to recover and start laying again. I removed the frame with the queen cells and added it to the queenless split that I made from my primary colony (more on that in a sec). I then gave the nuc another frame of eggs and will see what they do. They might pull more queen cells and, if they do, I’m inclined to trust their judgement. The bees know things that I do not. But, being sentimental when it comes to queens, I want to make sure I give this gal a shot to succeed.
As I just mentioned, I did end up splitting my overwintered colony. They’re building up so well and I want to make sure they don’t think about swarming. I took one deep box with the queen and one medium box, and moved that to a new location (mimicking a swarm where the queen leaves with at least 50% of the colony). The remaining half of the colony has plenty of eggs to make a new queen from but I also gave them the queen cells from the nuc. They might tear them down but we shall see.
I’m pleased to say that I was able to find another package of bees to purchase despite the lateness of the season. This is a package of Italian bees from Georgia that I picked up in Medina (about a 30 minute drive). The queen is a little small but I am not going to hold that against her. The weather, however, is against me again! The day after I installed them into my new top bar (so there’s no comb in there) it was in the 30s and sleeting all morning and then raining all day! I rushed out in the morning to wrap the hive as best as I could, and there is food in there, but they can’t access it where they have clustered around the queen. Thankfully, most of them made it through, and I was able to harvest some comb from my big colony and transferred it onto some of the bars, which I then sprayed with sugar syrup. The bees were happily eating that when I left them. With the warmer day temps, they should be able to effectively access their food now. I can’t put a liquid feeder in since our night temps are still going to be under 45F for a while, which is why I also left the wrap on one end of the hive to give them a little more insulation.
I’ve recently been in touch with my mentee, who managed to get her very difficult colony through the hard winter. She had a rough first year with queenlessness, a laying worker, bees that seem reluctant to draw comb, the high mite count we had in Fall, and then this wicked winter. I’m really impressed by her skills and commitment! She recently split the hive and is anxiously watching the queenless colony as she feels that they might time the emerging queens so that they can swarm. It’s possible and we discussed things to try (making a nucleus colony with some of the queen cells and shaking in half the population) but the weather has been a big impediment. Still, I’m really proud of what she’s doing. Beekeeping is hard work!
Overall, I feel like we’re off to a rough start this year. I’m down to my last box of honey from last year so I need at least one harvest before 2021 is done. I need my honey, dammit!! I’m absolutely hooked now. It’s just so delicious!
Homestead Updates
Well, the regular NE Ohio Spring weather arrived, which means it’s been grey, cold, and raining buckets for days. My garden flooded, as it always does, but the drainage ditch is still helping a lot with that. As happens each year, some ducks took advantage of all that water!
In chicken news, things are much the same. Pepperjack the rooster is still attacking my shins/boots, and I’ve taken to carrying the rake around when I’m by the coops as it’s the easiest way to fend him off without a protracted battle of feet (he kicks me, I gently boot him, he kicks me again, etc). Some days are worse than others and I am tired of chasing his butt down in order to parade him around. It doesn’t work anymore! The minute I put him down, he attacks again. Thank goodness he doesn’t have spurs or else I’d really be in trouble!
Two of the girls in the big flock are wearing hen saddles now. These are little aprons that go over their back, held on by elastic loops that go over their wings, and they protect their skin from the rooster’s claws when he mounts. When a hen is overbred, she will lose feathers on her back where the rooster stands on her. I have another hen who is starting to look like she might need one too. It’s interesting; I’ve noticed that Cracker, who was queen bitch before the rooster came along, still holds the place of honour snuggled up by him on the perch at night. Cheddar, the hen he was found with, takes the other side but is sometimes forced out by Raven or one of the ginger girls. Despite clearly being so high on the pecking order, Cracker is not one of Pepperjack’s favourites. Instead, it’s Bobby (my Easter Egger, mid-low in the pecking order), Cheddar (lowest and flighty), and now Raven. It’s curious how they work all this stuff out amongst themselves and, clearly, being one of his favourites means nothing to the other hens when it comes to who is in charge.
About 2 weeks ago, I decided to try taking Agatha off her pain meds. I was giving them to her mostly due to habit, and I wanted to see how she would get on without them. So far, so good! It seems like things hurt for her when her reproductive tract tries to come back online in the Spring, as well as during her moulting in the Fall. Winter is hard on her due to the cold and her arthritic joints but it’s looking like she might be able to stay off the meds for late Spring and Summer. I’m keeping a close eye on her, of course, and I’ll keep you all updated.
Speaking of chickens, I just learned about two small rescue groups that take in all the chicks and ducklings from feed stores that need extra care and therefore can’t be sold. Once they have rehabilitated the poor babies, they adopt them out to experienced, loving homes. I am delighted to learn of these kinds of rescues. I’ve reached out to one of the owners to find out how I can help in future. Their Facebook pages: Good Sprout Rescue, and Fowl Play Rescue.
If you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen that I took in a guinea fowl hen, lost her, found her, and then rehomed her! Which leads me to my topic for this episode:
Ginny the Guinea Fowl Hen
Sounds like a children’s book, doesn’t it?
So here’s the story: A friend of mine lives just over an hour away. She has a good sized property with a flock of chickens that she keeps penned up (in a really snazzy run that her husband built her; lucky duck!) due to predators in the area. One day, she hears this odd noise and finds a weird looking bird desperately trying to get into the run with her chickens. Now, my friend has spent most of her career working at zoos, including hands-on animal care jobs (the dream for so many of us!), so she immediately recognises that this odd looking bird is a guinea fowl of some type. Initially, she let’s the guinea be assuming that it would eventually return home but it stayed on her property and we had a cold front moving in. Worried that the poor thing would either freeze to death overnight or be eaten by a coyote, my friend let it into her coop/run, and it immediately made itself at home.
Now, my friend assumed this guinea was a hen, and she was right, so her daughter (one of the cutest kids in the world) names her Ginny. Ginny integrated really well with her flock; there was no fighting or upset and things went on as normal. However, guineas are very noisy. They have a strident, ‘rusty-door’ sounding call, and they vocalize constantly. Their coop and run is right by their bedroom window, and they were being woken up at 5am with this incessant noise, hearing it all day, and then going to sleep to it as well. My friend’s husband was the first to break and he asked her to rehome Ginny. My friend was ready to agree!
Now, when my friend asked me if I wanted her, I told her upfront that I’d give her a shot but might rehome her if it wasn’t working out since I knew guineas are infamous for their loud vocalizations, and my friend was completely upfront about the noise being the reason for rehoming her.
So, one Friday, I excitedly made the hour and a bit drive out to collect my first guinea fowl hen! It was a really nice, straight forward drive that ended in a lovely rural and wooded area. Sadly, I didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I’d hoped since it was absolutely bucketing it down the whole drive there (and back!). Thankfully, when I arrived, the rain eased off to a drizzle so we were only a little damp by the time we caught Ginny and loaded her into the crate in my car. A brief stop for coffee in an adorable small village and then we were on our way!
Back at the homestead, I kept her in the chicken run, away from the chickens, with a covered roost area where she could sleep at night. The chickens were given access to their coop (it’s a double door design and I kept the lower door open for them during the day) and free ranged during daylight hours. After a few days of this, where every-bird had had the chance to get a good look at each other, I would let 2-3 of the hens into the run with Ginny and see how things went. The chickens were more upset about this than she was! Ginny accepted the chickens immediately. She had arrived at my friend’s house and tried to get into the run with her flock, and had lived with them peacefully until I came to collect her so I anticipated that it would be a smooth transition. And it was! Ginny clearly wanted to be with the flock, and she would call incessantly if they went out of her sight. Even when she had a few hens to hang out with, she wanted to be able to see the whole flock at the same time.
Since things were going so well, I let Ginny have access to the coop after a few days and then decided to let her roam with the flock on the property. Big mistake!!
But before I get into Ginny’s Runaway Adventure, let me tell you about guinea fowl calls. The hens make a distinctive, rusty-door call that some people say sounds a bit like she’s saying ‘buckwheat! Buckwheat!’, while others say it’s more like ‘come back! Come back!’. I tend to agree with the latter.
Here’s an example of the hen’s call: YouTube Video
Now, imagine hearing that, with absolutely no variation in tone or pitch, ALL DAY. It really started to wear on us! At first, I assumed that it was particularly bad because she couldn’t follow the flock around, and would get so upset when they moved out of her sight. So I decided that letting her out would be a deciding factor in whether we kept her or not. Either, she’d stop being quite so noisy now that she could be with the flock all day, or she’d still be a noisy pain in the butt and we would rehome her to someone used to guineas. And so I let her out.
At first, Ginny hung out with the flock but then she looked around her and something broke in her tiny brain. She started running up and down the fence-line, frantically calling at the top of her lungs. It was absolutely bizarre! She didn’t do this when she was confined so I have no idea what was going on in her tiny, empty head. I started going out to speak to her and, weirdly, that calmed her down. Once I was out with her, she’d stop crying and start foraging. The minute I went back inside, she would start her running and calling.
I started to wonder if she was actually bonded to people? She was wary of us like all guineas tend to be but, if she had been handraised, was it possible she felt safest around people? Well, I still don’t know the answer to this because, after a few hours of running and calling and acting crazy, I decided to try and lure her back into the coop. I came so close and then she took off down the side of the property. I decided to call it a day and just leave her to her weirdness.
Maybe 15 minutes later, I hear her calling from the front of my house. She’d flown over the temporary fence I’d put up to keep the chickens away from my front yard and was now standing on the waterfall feature of our little pond, calling. I tried to shoo her back to the side property and she took one look at me, one look at my driveway, and booked it. She started running with a single-minded purpose. Girl was not going to stop! She went across the road, into my neighbour’s yard, and then just kept going. I chased her as far as I could, trespassing on at least 5 different private properties, and then lost her when she disappeared under a thorned underbrush. Ginny was gone, and I was guinea-less once more.
Full confession: I’d already decided to rehome her before she ran away and I think that made me feel especially guilty once she ran off. As if she somehow knew she was unwanted and was off to find greener pastures! I also felt sick thinking of how I had to tell my friend that I’d lost Ginny, and worse: she’d tell her adorable, big-hearted daughter that I’d lost her beloved Ginny. Clearly, I was some kind of guinea-hating monster. But, in all seriousness, I did feel genuinely sick to my stomach about the situation. I’m sure you can tell by now that I take my animal care duties extremely seriously. In my mind, I had assumed full responsibility for Ginny and, instead of keeping her safe, I had created a situation that allowed her to run away. It didn’t matter to me that this is a known issue with guinea fowl, even those raised from the egg; I had committed to care for this animal and I’d blown it. Woe is me. There were tears, I confess, and then I made a plan.
First, I told my friend what happened, and she was so gracious about it! That helped take the pressure off me a little; I felt a lot better knowing that I wasn’t now enemy number one with her. Second, I went back on Nextdoor (never use that thing anymore) and posted a lost ad, not really expecting anything to come of it. Well, I was wrong.
Thursday night, my neighbour across the way sends me a text: it was a picture of Ginny! Someone in a local facebook group had posted asking about her as she had been in their yard for a few hours, coming to the back door and acting as if she wanted to be let in. Now, I wasn’t in that Facebook group and joining is moderated so my sweet neighbour played intermediary and got all the info for me. I grabbed a carrier, a blanket, my husband, and (at his suggestion) a roll of deer netting. The neighbour was just 2 roads down, exactly in the direction Ginny had been running, and she met us as we pulled up. In the end, it took 4 of us (3 adults and a teenager) plus the blankets and the netting to catch that little turd!! Guineas are fast and agile so chasing her down was not an option. We had to pen her in with the netting to grab her. My husband made the final dive and capture but there was a problem; Guinea was tangled in the netting in such a way that we couldn’t extract her without risking her taking off. Since she wasn’t in an unhealthy position, we ended up just shoving her and the entire netting into the carrier with the remaining netting hanging out like the train of a wedding dress. It was ridiculous! So there we are, out of breath, covered in mud, and awkwardly carrying a cat carrier with netting spilling out of it.
I promised our helpful neighbour a jar of honey for all her help and then we piled into the car and made the short drive home. We carried the mess of netting through the garden and into the chicken run. Only when the door was firmly closed behind us did we let Ginny out. She was unharmed but extremely annoyed! It was pitch black at this point so we used the light on my cell phone to check her over and make sure she was moving okay. She was!
We trooped back into the house and immediately threw off our muddy clothes. My husband got the worst of it, bless him. As a biologist who has spent a good chunk of his career in the field, he had run full tilt after that little guinea and taken an epic slide in the mud! He was coated in the stuff. In fact, when I got in the car the next day, I found the passenger seat, inner door, and middle console covered in streaks of mud! Sigh. So we strip and then I realise something: the washing machine is broken. Great! It’s late and we’re running on an adrenaline high that is slowly wearing off so I just throw those muddy clothes in a pile out of sight and tell myself I’ll deal with it later.
Once we’re in clean clothes, I immediately reach out to a lady who I had previously discussed giving Ginny to. She has experience with guineas and is currently raising a baby whose mother had been predated suddenly during the night. She also has a male guinea who would benefit from a companion so it seemed like the perfect fit. She was delighted to hear of Ginny’s return and we made plans to meet the following day because I was DONE with guineas by this point!
And so, ultimately, that’s how I ended up going straight from my second COVID vaccine (yah immunity!) to a Walmart parking lot to hand over Ginny the guinea to her new mama. That afternoon, I was sent a photo of Ginny with the baby, and was told that the introduction was going well. Let’s hope Ginny finds this home worthy and doesn’t run off at the first possible opportunity!
Anyone out there want to collaborate on a children’s book? I feel like Ginny the Guinea and Sam the Wayward Turkey would be great stories!
Now, let’s cover some basic guinea fowl facts:
Guinea Fowl
Guineas are native to Africa but are kept worldwide on farms and homesteads with growing popularity, in a large part due to their voracious appetite for ticks and other insect pests that plague our gardens.
As a member of the order Galliformes, they can mate with chickens, though the offspring are sterile.
There are a number of different types of guinea fowl with 3 being the most commonly seen in captivity: the helmeted guinea fowl (Ginny!), the crested guinea fowl, and the vibrantly-coloured vulturine guinea fowl.
Guineas are voracious eaters and excellent foragers. They do best when allowed to roam as their primary diet consists of insects, grubs, seeds, and some vegetation. In captivity, they will also happily graze on 16-18% protein chicken feed, as well as scratch and treats such as oats, dried mealworms or black soldier fly larvae, etc.
This species is monogamous with pairs mating for life, although polygamous groups of one male to multiple females is seen in captivity especially for the common helmeted guinea.
Guineas are ground nesters, although many owners report them roosting in trees or even on top of buildings overnight.
These striking birds look similar to partridge but with featherless heads and necks. Their feathers are usually a grey-blue colour with white speckles, although different colour varieties have been bred in captivity, including solid white specimens with purple heads and necks.
Guineas can be sexed by their calls; a female (hen) will make the infamous ‘buckwheat!’ or ‘come back!’ call, while the male (cock) will make a ‘chi, chi, chi!’ call.
Guineas range in height from 16-28 inches and weigh between 1.3-3.5 lbs with the hens tending to be a little larger than the males (possibly due to their reproductive system needing more space). Although, I will say that I have seen some sources say the males are larger. My assumption is that it depends on the type of guinea fowl!
Guineas are not the best mothers. They start well, sitting diligently on their eggs, but once the babies (called keets) hatch, the hen will be back to her roaming and foraging, often leaving the babies behind. Since keets need adequate heat to survive, it’s not uncommon to find chilled or even dead keets around the nest area. In captivity, many keepers recommend incubating and raising the keets yourself to ensure survival. In the wild, males have been observed helping to care for keets, and it seems as if the communal or flock-driven living of guineas helps foster an environment that helps raise the offspring, even if individual hens are not attentive mothers. It’s entirely possible that a well balanced flock will effectively raise their own young but be prepared to bring the keets inside, just in case.
As ground roosting birds, guineas like to make their nests in hidden areas of twigs, brush, etc. It’s likely your hens will set up sneaky nests around your property but keeping them confined to the coop for at least a week is said to help teach them to lay inside.
These are territorial birds, who will both alert you to danger and fight fiercely to protect their territory. When kept alongside other poultry, they will alert long before a rooster or drake, which makes them a handy watchdog for your homestead or farm.
Guinea hens lay around 100 eggs a year so not prolific but no slouch either. These eggs are smaller than the average chicken egg, with much harder shells, but they’re also higher in protein and fats. Some say they taste the same as a chicken egg, while others feel they’re richer and creamier in taste.
They are capable of flight and are actually strong fliers that can be found in trees, on the fences, and even on the roof of your house! Clipping their wings is not recommended as they thrive when allowed to free range, and clipping will make it easier for predators to pick them off.
Guineas are not truly domesticated like chickens; they still act wild, which means they’re wary of people, independent, and hard to catch. These are not hand-tame, snuggly birds. They’re happiest when with other guineas, and they’re prone to roaming great distances.
Even if you raise guineas from the egg, there’s a chance they’ll run away. Some tips I found for keeping them at home include keeping them confined to a coop and secure run for at least 6 weeks; releasing one guinea at a time as their desire to stay with the flock will keep them close to their confined companions; and training them to return to the coop using high value treats offered at the same time each day. From everything I have read, even if you do everything ‘right’, one day your flock might just take off to the woods, never to be seen again. It’s a risk you take when you decide to keep this interesting bird.
So let’s consider the cons of this bird: flighty, prone to running away, likes to hide their nests (and therefore their eggs), noisy, and hard to catch/handle (making vet care difficult).
Pros: rich, delicious eggs, interesting to watch, will rapidly reduce insect pests on your property (including Lyme carrying ticks), independent, long lived (10-15 years), not prone to disease or illness (compared to chickens), and can double as a source of lean meat.
After my experience with Ginny, I am firmly in the ‘no, thank you’ camp when it comes to guinea fowl!
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Next episode, I will be reviewing the top bar hive made by Gold Star Honeybees, as well as my experience installing a package into it. I’ll also cover some top bar beekeeping basics, and will have a giveaway for a book on the subject so stay tuned!
I hope you're all staying safe and doing well out there. Until next time, you can find me snoozing with my pups or working in the garden!
