I keep thinking mine are gonna hook up with the local wild turkey flock. They really look a LOT a like right now! That is, other than the spots. The turkeys in our area just look at you like "huh?". I'm not a big bird person, but these are really prehistoric-looking.

I'm off to feed the guineas. :)

Guineas make the best security watchers. My Aunt had several, the quinea would make loud noises when someone came to her house. She never had a surprise visitor.

We live in a very rural area with coyotes, fox, bear and other wild animals. My neighbor had 13 guineas and let them out into our pastures every day to eat bugs. They looked so funny, my DH didn't know what they were at first and called them a "herd of turtles - but very fast turtles". The ones that stayed in the group did okay but the ones that wanted to be loners disappeared. We found only one pile of feathers as proof that a dog or coyote got it but more were missing. He put the remaining ones in his fenced-in area where his coops are and locks them up inside at night now. They laid eggs a lot but abandoned them every time so he gathered up any new ones and had his regular chickens set on them to hatch them out. He's got about a dozen again. I may get some when our coop get built. They are great for getting rid of bugs, including ticks.

They like to roost in trees. I would let them out in a fenced in area and then keep making it bigger until they are older.

I love chickens and guines - but being they like to roost in trees mine got ate by preditors.

Cute stuff here! I really like these birds though I've never raised them there is a small flock that frequents the area. They are probably escapees from a near by farmette.

http://video.search.yahoo.com/search...?p=guinea+fowl

http://raising-guineas.com/

http://farmingfriends.com/raising-gu...o-8-weeks-old/

Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim and guineas will take to the trees (and only want to set when they can hide their nest). Good luck.

Guinea eggs are very rich in flavor, deep yellow color. My aunt used to make a good pound cake using guinea eggs.

Here's a bit better of a picture. I did hear you can eat the eggs, and when used in recipes it's two guinea eggs per one regular.

When we raised guineas several years back, we taught them to come-a-runnin when we called them by giving them a little white millet seed. That stuff is like CANDY to them. We started out by going in the guinea pen with a handful and calling to them as we scattered it on the ground. It didn't take them long to associate being called with getting the millet.

We had to be sure to call them in before dusk, otherwise they'd roost in tree or on a roof and wouldn't come down 'till morning. A few of them spent an occasional night out, but because they naturally roost up high, they came through OK.

Oh, and if you intend to use the eggs, you really do have to keep them in their pen/coop or you'll really have a hard time finding the eggs. We looked and looked every day, but mostly didn't find them. One day we were looking through some fence posts in the junk pile and found a whole nest of eggs, probably close to 50 or them, but no one was brooding them, and we had no idea how old they were!

Hope you have as much fun with them as we did!

Wendy

Well, today is a beautiful, crisp, sunny autumn day, so I decided today was a good day to let my guineas free. So far, so good. They are currently combing the grass around the house for bugs. Cutest things. I figured I'd share an update. :)