Guineas are truly the way to go if you are trying to not use pesticides. We use 8-10 guineas to keep insects down in the yard and garden. They do not damage the plants or vegetables. The only two insects that I noticed they did not control as well as they did others were squash bugs and large tomato(tobacco) hornworms. After I picked the large hornworms off, the guineas were able to keep the young ones "gathered"! Be aware that the guineas like to get under the tomato plants to lay eggs and also create nests for setting. If you are going to use the guineas, you need to have some older keets (4-5 months old now) and put them in the pen they will have as their home. The best way to train them to come "home" each evening is 1) leave them in the pen for several weeks after you get them before you let any of them out; otherwise, they will take off to parts unknown. 2) Then, begin to train them by allowing 1 or 2 out of the pen for a while each day. They will want to get back in the pen with the others. 3) Do this for a few weeks before you let them all out. 4) Choose a phrase/word and use that phrase/word every day when you start outside to the pen in the evening to feed them. They will learn to associate the word/phrase with returning to their pen and being fed. It is easiest to get the guineas to "pen up" around the beginning of sunset. Also, you need to make sure the run for your pen has an enclosed top (chicken wire or netting of some type) or your guineas will fly out and roost in trees or on top of buildings. This will make them easy prey for predators. They will need to have a high roost board in their house because they will not roost on the floor like chickens will. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a 2x4 run across a span of their house at least 4 feet off the floor. Best of luck with your guineas - they are a hoot to watch when they chase grasshoppers. More entertainment than watching TV!

We have 70 chickens and their hoop house is 14' X 40'. There is more than enough roosting space, but they don't think so since they all have their own ideas of exactly where they want to roost. They also have very specific ideas of exactly who they want on both sides of them! There is plenty of complaining and jostling around until they finally get settled each night. (We also have a 14' X 20' coop, but only three or four were roosting in there and when we got all this below zero weather, we closed that one up so they would all be together in the big house. As far as eating and drinking at night, they don't come down off the roosts until daylight. We don't have extra lighting for them so I don't know if they would eat and drink if there was light. We have 12 nest boxes in the big house and 6 in the small one. Again, they have specific ideas of which nest box they want to lay in and some hardly get used at all. Others will have 8-10 eggs! So, I guess these were sort of non-answers. Today we are having a heat wave -- it got up to 20 deg. and they were outside in the snow most of the day. They hate being cooped up and will sure look forward to spring when there is vegetation again.

zig zag it took me half a day to figure out c&p meant cut and paste! LOL. I read lots of responses on the guinea threads and so far it sounds like the guineas can be with the chickens until they turn into adults and then they turn really mean towards the chickens. Sad really cause I would have liked to keep them together. But then again I will let the Guineas have free reigh over the yard while the chickens are confined to their fenced in area. Only occasionally do I let them out. Sorry to hear of the murder the dogs committed. Dogs aggravate me when they come around my place. So far they have all gotten zapped by my hot wire and well they have not returned : - ) ncgardengirl you do have to keep a light on the Guineas if they are keets. I have a 100 watt bulb on mines and I am not sure if it is warm enough because they stay huddled up a lot. I can't wait to see if they make a difference. I have a horrible weed problem this year (clovers) ever since we cut the grass the first time. It spread weeds all over the place and it is out of control! I hear they eat the weed seeds. Oh and those white flowers on the cloves well they attracted more than my fair share of bees! Not to mention that I have a lot of ants in one of my tress, They can eat every one of them. I seen a lot of wasps this year too, more food for them and you probably read about my smooth earth snakes. I don't mind if they become part of the food chain. Termites, have not seen any of them yet THANK GOD! Oh and I have so many gnats and ticks too. Just how does this get out of control like this? I can't do it all and sincce I have other animals I can not spray so I am really depending on the guineas to help me out. I should have brought 20 of these suckers. They are so cute! (In an ugly sorta way) I put a small round mirror from the dollar store in the brooder today and they stay in the mirror chirping at themselves. They are so vain!

All that noise is from the guinea, konrad. There are about six hens still around but I expect most of them to stay in the woods when nesting begins. Apparently this kind of fighting is not a fight to the death; corunum on the New England Gardening forum found this reference about The Tremendous Turkey "When fighting for male dominance, the birds try to damage the secondary sexual characteristics (snood and tissues around the head) so that the bird being attacked is not attractive to females. If a male loses these fights and has damage to the snood and soft tissue around the head, usually the other males will leave him alone. In other words, turkey males do not fight to the death of the other. Sometimes death of a male does occur due to consequences of fighting but this is not the intention of the aggressive male." Claire