Do guinea fowl keep your garden pest free?
I am considering raising guinea fowl as a non-chemical method of treating my property for pests, particularly ticks. I own 8 acres in the country. In the last 2 to 3 years I’ve noticed a huge increase in the tick population and must routinely pick them off my dogs, who spend a lot of time playing outside. We’ve also had to pick them off our own bodies. This is unacceptable and is just disgusting to me. We also have a lot of Japanese beetles which destroy our several perennial gardens. We pick the beetles off by hand and drown them in kerosene. I have a lot of hostas and slugs which eat them.
I would like to hear from anyone who has first hand experience raising guinea fowl. I know they can be very noisy. What are the pitfalls and do the benefits outweigh them? Will these African native birds survive Pennsylvania winters? Will my dogs go nuts barking at them? I don’t want noise from the birds or dogs disturbing my neighbors. Do they eat mosquitoes also?
October 13th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Do do keep the tick population down here in the south. they are great foragers and do alot of roaming.
You must build adequate protection for them at night so they can roost, or they will head to the woods and you will not see them anymore.
Yes they are noisy but they do make the best driveway alarm, nobody will enter tyour property without you knowing about it.
can’t stand slugs in my garden
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October 19th, 2011 at 10:36 am
They’ll pick and scratch but won’t do any more getting rid of pests than regular chickens or bantam chickens. They aren’t hard to keep but sometimes hard to raise from chicks.
They’re good at alarming if a snake comes around. For some reason, they like to congregate in the road and get run over. Some people like to run them down rather than avoid them.
When they raise young, the hens will take the chicks through the dew and often they chill and die. They are rather independent but still will need to be fed just like chickens or any domestic animal. Don’t expect them to live off the land; they will die.
What might help you is to keep your grass cut as low as possible leaving the ticks no place to hide.
You might go with Silver Sebrights. They’re the only true bantam in the world and the only chicken named after a person, Sir John Sebright.
I bought these for my mother to keep to keep her own pet rooster who was part Sebright company. As there just a few, the chicks were raised in the house until they were old enough to be put outside in a pen. Later, a house was built for them and as they matured, they were given full run of the yard.
They are truly cats with feathers, are very tame, have little personalities and a very beautiful chicken. The white feathers with black lacing is quite striking and the rooster is most elegant.
Bantams are chickens that usually people keep for ornamental reasons. Also, there is a society devoted to this breed and I believe they do show them much like they do at dog shows
http://www.omlet.co.uk/breeds/breeds.php?breed_type=Chickens&breed=Sebright
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October 25th, 2011 at 1:36 am
Hey Susan I really dont know. But i wanted to thank your for answering that my question. It was good to hear someone elses experence. I dident know how else to contact you so i just dicided to tell you this way. Well… Thank you again!
-Keligh
http://www.omlet.co.uk/breeds/breeds.php?breed_type=Chickens&breed=Sebright
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