I've had several flocks of guineas over the years, and I too love them enough to put up with the loud noises they can make....my experience is that they calm down greatly when they get out of their teenage time. In fact, my last adult guineas hardly ever said anything unless something startled them. And how I loved their bug-eating ways ! My 2 hounds never,ever had ticks, nor did I see those huge, ugly lubber grasshoppers in my flowers. I also learned never to buy adult guineas if I wanted them to stay around (all my flocks have been free range). I wish I lived near someone who wanted to give away the fresh eggs or keets ! Would love to have some guineas again.

Well........it didn't work out too well. All 4 chicken eggs hatched out @ days 19 to 20 (a Fri & Sat.) I had to take them to a brooder box because the momma got off the eggs to take care of them. She wasn't off more than a couple hours and it was 104 degrees at the time. One guinea hatched out on day 28 but it was dead by the time I got home from work. It was 105 degrees and I wasn't there to show it where to get water. On day 32 I chunked the other 5 guinea eggs into the pond and put the 4 chicks back in with broody hen. She pecked at them terribly and eventually abandoned them, so now she's back in the coop with all the others and I'm taking care of the chicks in a separate area.

Thanks for your helpfulness, Vera--the link isn't appearing in your post. If you see this again, would you please repost? Thanks! I was also wondering what effect the presence of domesticated birds like guineas has on songbirds and other wild birds, including a flock of crows. I've got quite a menagerie that visits my feeder, and they probably already help to some extent with suppressing Japanese beetles and other bugs, and I'd hate to scare them off. Your comments about guineas being noisy made me think of that. Thanks again, Janice

Ada, I love guineas and have had them for many years, but would never try to keep them in a suburban environment. There is just no way it is going to work out well. Guineas are the loudest creatures on the face of the earth and even if your neighbors agree ahead of time that it is OK with them if you have guineas, I bet they'll change their mind when they hear them. We've had them every year except this year, because predators wiped out our 30 last year along with most the other poultry in our neighborhood and we decided to skip having them this year in the hope that the predators would move on. (They haven't.) Our guineas ate ticks but preferred grasshoppers and would chase them endlessly. Our chickens stick closer to the house and eat ticks as well. If you have guineas (or any other game birds or poultry) you have to have a coop for them that is predator proof because everything under the sun will attemp to kill them, and often succeed, including dogs, raccoons, bobcats, foxes, coyotes, ringtail cats, and hawks. Some snakes will kill keats and half-grown guineas. Guineas will make a racket and squawk any time something they're 'used to' changes or is out of place, so they'll alert you every time an animal walks across the yard, etc. and they'll have a fit and treat your husband like an invading stranger if he does something drastic like shaving off his mustache or getting contacts instead of wearing glasses. They like for things to stay exactly the same and don't handle change well. They'll run right out into traffic when they're chasing a grasshopper and you'll lose some that way, and you can be legally liable for vehicle damage if the guineas cause a vehicle accident. Our guineas did keep our property pretty much tick-free and grasshopper-free, but then the dogs and cats would run wild through the pastures next door and bring home ticks on them, so even though we might have been 98% tick-free, we were never 100% tick-free. Even though the guineas have been gone for about a year, we still haven't had ticks return, unless the chickens have been eating them. I'm not seeing ticks on our dogs and cats though. Our guineas were locked in a predator-proof coop at night, although it took us a few years to make it 100% predator-proof, and we could keep them inside a covered chicken run during the day if we didn't want them roaming because a bobcat or fox or whatever was around. However, once they are used to being allowed to leave the fenced area, they aren't happy being cooped up and scream and yell all day for you to come let them out. One option that no one has mentioned is a chicken tractor. If you made a very lightweight chicken tractor, you could drag it to a new spot every day and let them work that area and then drag it to a new spot the next day. While purchased chicken tractors are very expensive, you can make your own pretty easily and fairly inexpensively. I've linked a website below set up by a woman to show many different versions of the chicken tractor. If you google 'chicken tractor' you'll find everything from books to detailed plans to YouTube how-to videos. If you're at home during the day, you can move the chicken tractor every hour or two and they'd cover more ground that way, but they still will be very loud. And, yes, you need to raise them from keats or they'll leave your place and try to "go home" even if home is 100 miles away. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Chicken Tractors