Go Ahead, Get Guineas
(Page 3 of 4)
October/November 2003
By Nancy Smith
Ferguson says she and her family never have had Lyme disease, but some guinea owners, including Phyllis Bender of Westport, Connecticut, bought their first birds after contracting that illness. Bender first was diagnosed with Lyme eight years ago and then contracted a second tick-borne disease. Her pet dog has had Lyme three times, and had such severe torn ligaments around its knees from the disease that orthopedic surgery had to be done.
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"I have a lot of woods in the back," Bender says of her one-acre New England lot. "We can see the deer walking up the street here." A gardener like Ferguson, she put up an 8-foot-high fence to keep the deer out of her immediate back yard, but the ticks already had moved in. Four years ago, she heard about guineas and their spectacular appetite for ticks on a television show. A short time later, she saw some keets for sale at her local organic fruit and vegetable stand; she didn't hesitate to buy five on the spot.
"I was very excited, but I didn't know anything about them," she says. A friend who owned guineas offered tips on basic guinea care. In urban Westport, keeping guinea fowl is legal as long as they remain on the owner's property, so Bender had a friend build an 8-by-16-foot coop in her yard. The four-sectioned coop includes one 6-by-4-foot space that she uses for rehabilitating injured guineas. Her birds go in and out of the coop freely, she says, and always have stayed in her yard without having their wings clipped.
Bender also has outfitted a bird room inside her home, where "house guineas" (special pets) reside during winter months; several have moved inside for one reason or another over time. "I love the birds, I really do," Bender says.
The genuine regard guinea owners have for this feisty fowl is common, Winter says, and Ferguson agrees, noting the birds "are just very entertaining to sit and watch." She became so fond of them she developed a Web site, www.guineafowl.com, which has triggered thousands of hits a month and enthusiastic e-mails from guinea owners and would-be owners hungry for information. "People wanted to know everything from what to feed a guinea to how to tame one, what sort of housing they needed, what colors were available and how to sex the birds," she says.
