Guinea Fowl Space

Guinea fowl do not do well in confinement. They love to free-range, and at least need a large pen with some brush in it to be happy. They are voracious insect eaters, so you really want them running over your property anyway, making sure the bugs stay under control.

In addition to the larger space that they want, you'll need to make sure that you don't have close neighbors who will be bothered by noise - because they are one of the noisiest of birds, and their call can be very annoying. Some sources say that they do well as watch-animals, because they will sound an obnoxious alarm every time something threatening is around - that may be anything from a hungry coyote, to a friend who has dropped in to say "hi".

For those reasons, you really won't want to try to sneak them into a back yard in the suburbs, and they just won't work on a balcony in the city. You are going to need an acre or more to accommodate these birds, unless you happen to have a half acre in the middle of nowhere.

Free range birds do best of trained to come home each night. The simplest way to do this is to train them from a young age to be fed at night. If you scatter scratch grain out where you want them to forage in the morning, and reserve the tastiest feed for their pen at night, they'll usually come home on a fairly predictable schedule, and can be penned up for night. Simply left to free-range all the time, they will be very vulnerable to predation, and will roam widely onto neighbor's property.

Give them space, with plenty of forage and good juicy bugs, and they'll be happy.

 

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