Ask the Expert: Guinea Fowl
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Male/Female Guinea Fowl
What is the best and easiest way to determine a male/female Guinea Fowl?
Beverly
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Hi Beverly,
The following advice is from one of our writers, Mel Dickinson. Hope it helps!
“It’s difficult to tell them apart. The only tried and true way we have found is to listen to their call. The females make a “good luck, good luck” sound and the males make this horrible “chachachacha” sound. Sometimes our males are slightly larger in size, have a little larger wattles and helmet, but we always rely on their calls to tell them apart.”
Adding Guinea Fowl
I have a question about guinea fowl. I was wondering if we could get one keet and either raise it alone, or with a few chicks, and then just integrate it with our existing chickens in their 25 by 15-foot run? Also how loud would it be? We have pretty close neighbors. They tolerate our eight chickens and three ducks.
Calvin
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Hi Calvin,
You might be able to raise a guinea keet along with a few chicks, but it probably won’t do very well alone. Keets need a higher level of protein than do chicks, so you’ll probably need to feed a gamebird ration. It shouldn’t hurt the chicks — it’ll just cost a bit more. You’ll also have to have a good waterer that doesn’t spill easily. Guinea keets are very prone to chilling if they get wet.
Some people have had problems with male guineas harassing male chickens, so you might run into a problem once they mature.
Noise may be a concern. Guineas are pretty loud and will make quite a lot of noise when something changes. This could be some animal walking near them, people approaching, a bird flying over, etc. They are definitely a level above chickens and ducks in noise production! There are audio and/or video files of guineas on the internet — you might listen to a few of these before you make your decision.
Good luck!
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