October/November 2003
By Nancy Smith
Any bird with a call like "Buckwheat!" and a head like a helmet needs some redeeming quality. In the case of the guinea fowl, which have both the call (in this case, the hens say "Buckwheat!") and the oddly shaped, nearly bald noggin, their appetite for ticks may be their meal ticket in more than one way.
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First introduced to the United States from their native Africa during pre-Civil War days, guineas have been kept on small farms and homesteads, usually mixed in with chickens and assorted other fowl, and admired mostly for their delicately speckled eggs and their "watch dog" instincts. They reliably sound their alarm call whenever hawks circle the chickens or rats infiltrate the poultry house to filch eggs, or when strangers drive up the lane.
Although guineas share a U.S. Department of Agriculture poultry classification with chickens, they range further, fly higher and are more active than chickens, says Jeannette Ferguson of Waynesville, Ohio, author of the how-to book, Gardening with Guineas.
"Guineas are rough, vigorous, hardy, basically disease-free birds," she says. "They're also the most active 'gardener' on the farm. Continuously on the move, they pick up bugs and weed seeds with nearly every peck they take—and they do it without destroying plants because they do not scratch like chickens."
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