Guinea Fowl Are Not Just Chickens Only Different

Guinea fowl and chickens are both Galliformes. They are similar in size and shape, and both lay eggs. But guinea fowl are not just chickens only different. They are different, period. If you wish to add guinea fowl to your flock, here are some things you might want to know.

Commotion

Guineas love noise. They are noisy themselves, a trait that turns off a lot of potential guinea keepers. It also turns off a lot of neighbors of guinea keepers. Make no mistake, guineas are far noisier, and louder, than chickens.

Not only do guineas make noise, they are attracted to noise. Back in the days when my husband Allan was cutting firewood, a guinea (not ours, I might add) would daily appear out of the woods and chatter away in accompaniment to the chainsaw.

And when we start the lawn mower, our guineas come running. The noisy mower is a signal that grasshoppers and other tasty treats will be flying out of the grass. The chickens, on the other hand, run the other way.

Egg Laying

Guinea fowl are more seasonal layers than most chickens. In a year, a guinea hen won’t lay more than about 100 eggs, if that many. Our first-year guineas lay for a short time in late spring and early summer. The older hens lay earlier in the spring, quit for the summer, then sometimes lay a few more eggs in the fall.

Taste-wise and nutritionally, guinea eggs and chicken eggs are pretty much the same. But guinea eggs differ from chicken eggs in these ways:

• They are smaller than regular chicken eggs; about the size of a pullet or bantam egg.
• They have tougher shells.
• They are light brown and somewhat speckled.
• The pointed end is pointier than that of a chicken egg.
• They take longer to hatch; 28 days, compared to 21 days for chicken eggs.

Brooding

Guinea hens like to lay in communal nests. They might accumulate as many as 30 eggs in a single nest before one of the hens gets broody. The other hens will then start another communal nest. Trying to find these nests (before the crows do!) is always a challenge on our farm.

If we don’t find a nest, and one of the hens decides to set, the venture rarely ends well. For 28 days the hen, and her eggs, are vulnerable to predation. But even if she successfully hatches the eggs, she’ll be a dismal mother.

Guinea hens are tenacious setters, but have no concept that their tiny hatchlings are fragile. Keets (guinea chicks) can’t keep up with active grown ups, and they can’t survive cold and/or damp conditions.

On the other hand, a flock of adult guineas will fiercely protect their babies from intruders. If we decide to gather the keets to raise in a brooder, we get attacked.

Aggression

Guinea fowl are aggressive, particularly the males. They chase and peck each other. They chase and peck the chickens. They can be especially mean to roosters.

In several decades of raising guinea fowl, though, I’ve never seen one be aggressive toward humans. The single exception is when they are protecting keets, but who can blame them for that?

Wandering

An advantage and disadvantage to guinea fowl is that they wander farther and wider than chickens do. It’s an advantage if you keep guineas control ticks and other insect pests.

But it can be a decided disadvantage if they end up in your neighbor’s yard, especially if the neighbor isn’t happy about it. Or they just might wander away, and never to come back, unless you teach your guineas where home is.

In their wanderings, guineas prefer to mostly walk, or rather scurry. But, if frightened, they can fly incredibly well and may end up on the coop roof or at the top of the nearest tree.

Sure, you could clip their wings, but that would defeat the purpose of having them for pest control. And it makes them more vulnerable to predators.

Unclipped guineas, on the other hand, will deter predators. We’ve seen them surround and harass both foxes and snakes, making the interloper feel decidedly uncomfortable about hanging around. That’s beneficial for both the guinea fowl and the chickens.

Catchability

Just about the only way to catch a guinea is to wait until after dark and pick it off the roost by both wings. If, instead, you happen to get a handful of feathers, the guinea will take off, leaving you with… a handful of feathers.

And once the guinea realizes what you are up to, it becomes super wary. If you can’t wait to catch it until another day, you’ll need a net. And that’s assuming the wary guinea remains enclosed inside the coop.

Guinea fowl can’t be carried by their legs, like chickens can. Not that chickens like being carried by their legs, but doing so typically won’t break a leg. On the other hand, grab a guinea by it’s legs and it will whip around like an egg beater. If you’re not careful, it will break a leg or two.

Domestication

As you’ve probably guessed by now, guineas are much less domesticated than chickens. Oh, yes, you can a train them to be friendly. But it’ll take far more time than most of us could possibly consider spending, starting when they are still keets.

Otherwise they won’t eat out of your hand, they won’t jump into your lap, and they definitely don’t want to be picked up and cuddled like a chicken. They will come when you bring feed, but their plan is to eat and run.

They also don’t think much of laying eggs inside the coop, but would rather hide them somewhere outside. In fact, they don’t even think much of living inside a coop, although you can teach guineas to roost indoors, especially if you raise them with chickens. But here’s an interesting thing, if for some reason you later remove all the chickens from the coop, the guineas will refuse to go back in.

However, after several years of keeping guinea fowl with chickens, and raising new keets each year with chicks, our guineas have gradually become more domesticated. They are less reluctant to go indoors at night, and more inclined to lay eggs inside the coop. Sometimes we’ll even find an occasional guinea egg in one of the chicken nests, rather than tucked away in litter in a corner of the floor.

So, although guinea fowl are not just a different kind of chicken, they can coexist with chickens. And their wildness nicely counterbalances the chickens’ more domesticated nature, keeping the poultry yard ever interesting.