My Garden: And Then There Were Three

In May we purchased six guinea fowl to help with the bug control in our garden.

Almost immediately we lost one. Don’t know what caused the death one day it was fine and the next day it was dead. However the rest of the gunieas continued to thrive and were perfectly content to be raised with our baby chickens. We handled the young birds as often as we could and gave them treats of millet to get them used to us. As they got older we found that no matter how much we handled them they were not as friendly as our chickens.

Soon the young birds were placed into the coop with the older hens. We’re still experiencing a bit of the peaking order but for the most part everyone is getting along. However I wanted the guineas to have free range of the garden while keeping the chickens in their yard. My husband was able to lower the fence each morning and they would wander about all day and then return to the coop in the evening to be shut up with the chickens.

The guineas wandered around the yard during the day, making a large circle around the chicken coop and eating bugs and grasshoppers all day. They can be noisy especially when on alert but after scaring a large hawk out of the yard we didn’t mind the noise. Luckily we don’t have neighbors close by.

All was going along smoothly and I was content in the knowledge that these strange birds were decreasing the bug population. Until the other night. We went down at dusk to close the chickens and guineas in the coop and noticed the guineas were all perched up on top of our blueberry fence, which is next to the coop.

No amount of coaxing could get them down. So the chickens were shut in and we hoped for the best for the gunieas. In the morning there were only three. We have no idea what happened to the other two, there was no sign of feathers anywhere. We can only assume that an owl must have taken them. Needless to say the remaining three no longer are interested in perching on the blueberry fence at night and are happy to be shut up each night with the chickens.

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