So, last summer (2010) I ordered 10 guineas from the local farm supply store and, as usual, set them up in a small tank in a bathtub that we rarely use. Guineas are VERY sensitive to temperature at a young age, so you have to get a heat lamp, brooder lamp, or something along that line to keep them quite warm until they start getting feathers. Everything went pretty well last year, but as all young birds do, they started getting pretty stinky at a few weeks old. I believe I made the decision to put them out in a little-used dog kennel at about 5 weeks old, which was way too early. They could actually fit through the diamond shaped holes in the side of the kennel and they were pretty flighty. Out of desperation, I took them straight to my new garden (an old round corral recently converted to a garden) and set them up in there. We had lined the bottom portion of the corral/garden with some old garden fencing which worked pretty well to keep them inside the garden, but they could get through very small nooks and crannies and were frequently outside the garden, which greatly excited our St. Bernard.
They did a fine job of cutting down the grasshopper population in the garden very quickly. Unfortunately, after a week or so I began noticing about one bird missing each morning. When comparing notes with a fellow guinea raiser down the road, we realized we had both had a lot of owls calling back and forth after dark and came to the conclusion that the owls were plucking off the guineas one by one after dark. So, that's basically the end of my 2010 Guinea Experiment.
This year, I decided I again wanted guineas. Fortunately, the grasshoppers have been much lower populated this year, but there are still a number of them. I got my 20 guineas on June 16th and put them in their indoor tank with a warm light. The second night the light bulb burned out in the middle of the night and I subsequently lost 7 guineas over the next few days. But then there was a turnaround and those who were still alive started thriving and growing. Once again I had 13 guineas. This time I determined I was going to keep them warmed and inside a structure until they had most of their feathers and were closer to 8 weeks old as per most advice. When I could no longer stand them in my bathroom, I moved them out to the garage and luckily we were having some very warm weather and they adjusted nicely. I kept them pretty confined in a 100-gallon Rubbermaid stock tank with a chicken wire lid and an occasional light on cool evenings. As they feathered out I started setting them outside in the shade to acclimate them to the outdoors. I'd throw in the occasional grasshoppers to supplement their bird starter food.
One week ago I decided they were big enough to be moved into the unused dog kennel with their Rubbermaid stock tank. I put a blue tarp over the kennel to discourage them from flying out and provide some rain relief. Now they could fly out of the tank, but not out of the kennel and they were big enough not to fit through the sides of the kennel. They seemed to enjoy this arrangement a lot as they could get the occasional misguided bug, yet still have some security of rain cover and daily feedings and water.
During this time my husband I have been beefing up the fencing around the garden, preparing for the guineas. I also determined it was necessary to cover the entire garden with bird netting to keep the owl out as he has basically taken up residence in the partially completed greenhouse next to the garden. I've always been an owl lover, so I don't have the heart to chase him away, so we just have to do some creative co-existence between him and the guineas. My round corral garden is approximately 50 feet across, which amounts to a lot of bird netting. We installed a vertical pole in the middle of the garden which is approx. 9 feet tall to hold up the center of the netting. I did several searches on the internet and finally came across a reasonably priced roll of netting which measured 14 feet by 300 feet. Once I received the netting I laid it out and cut it into pieces 14 feet by 60 feet and then sewed the sides of the pieces together with fishing line until I had 5 pieces of netting sewn side by side measuring approx. 60 feet by 60 feet. Next my husband, daughter, and I rolled the netting up on two sides towards the middle into a long roll and carried it into the garden, placed the center of the roll on top of the pole which now had a plastic saucer sled screwed upside down atop it so as to keep the netting from tearing on the pole. This process went relatively smoothly, although would have been much simpler had it been done prior to the garden getting as tall as it is now and so many obstacles within it. Next we pulled the netting out in all directions and where it draped over the sides of the round corral we tacked it in place on the outside of the top railings with miscellaneous boards we had lying around the place.
So now the guineas have a relatively safe place to roam inside the garden amongst all the plants, plenty of natural hunt-and-peck food to eat, and little chance of an owl plucking them off at night. Hopefully.
Michelle Grosek
Bear Butte Gardens
Michelle@BearButteGardens.com
http://www.bearbuttegardens.com/
