How to Raise Guinea Fowl: A Low-Maintenance Flock

Compared to chickens, guinea fowl are low-cost, low-maintenance, and do a standout job as chemical-free pest control. Learn all about how to raise guinea fowl.

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by Pexels/Jennifer Myers

Compared to chickens, guinea fowl are low-cost, low-maintenance, and do a standout job as chemical-free pest control. Learn how to catch guinea fowl and all about how to raise guinea fowl.

Like officious little men in baggy gray suits, the guinea fowl scuttle up and down our driveway. Since dawn, they’ve been scouring our orchard for beetles, locusts, spiders, and ticks. Now they are ready to patrol our yard and garden for ants, cockroaches, flies, wasps, termites, cutworms, grubs, and snails. The guinea fowl are relentless in their pursuit.

I can remember a time when my husband and I had no guineas. Our former flock had roosted in trees and nested on the ground where, one by one, they had fallen prey to owls and foxes. While we were guinea-less, our potato crop was denuded by potato beetles, our hibiscus hedge was decimated by locusts, and we lost several fruit trees to flat-head borers. We soon realized that our “little gray men” had given us far more than just a pleasant diversion (and occasional good eating). So we got a new crew to work our land, and I hope never to live without these little guys again.

Raising Guinea Fowl

Many people have never seen, much less heard of, guinea fowl. Visitors, on spying their first guinea, invariably ask “What is that–a turkey?” Nope, but not a bad guess. Like turkeys, guineas are Galliformes, a group encompassing all chicken-like birds. But while chickens are members of the pheasant family, turkeys and guineas each have a family of their own. Native to Africa, they are known for traveling in large, gregarious flocks. Guinea fowl were introduced into Europe by 15th century Portuguese explorers and then arrived in North America with the early settlers. There are seven species of guinea fowl, of which the “helmeted pearl” is by far the most common, and certainly the weirdest looking, with its oddly shaped helmet, white, featherless face, bright red wattles, and gray polka-dotted feathers.

  • Updated on Jul 7, 2022
  • Originally Published on Aug 1, 1992
Tagged with: fowl, Gail Damerow, game birds, guinea birds, guinea fowl, helmeted pearl, keets
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