Trainability of Guinea Fowl

[centrarchid]

I have been raising some of my chickens for educators that are very tame and trained to perform even in strange environments with strangers around. I would like to try similar with a pair of Guinea Fowl. My goal is to have them come when called and to tolerate close handling. My chickens used can wander 150 feet away and will run through a crowd of people when called. Anyone have experience taming and training Guinea Fowl?

I can start this either of two ways. First is simply hand raising them where the young birds spend much of their time in a brooder as keets/chicks. The other approach is to hen-hatch and hen-rear under a game hen that promotes chicks coming to me when called.

 

[R2elk]

I have been raising some of my chickens for educators that are very tame and trained to perform even in strange environments with strangers around. I would like to try similar with a pair of Guinea Fowl. My goal is to have them come when called and to tolerate close handling. My chickens used can wander 150 feet away and will run through a crowd of people when called. Anyone have experience taming and training Guinea Fowl?

I can start this either of two ways. First is simply hand raising them where the young birds spend much of their time in a brooder as keets/chicks. The other approach is to hen-hatch and hen-rear under a game hen that promotes chicks coming to me when called.

Personally I will not brood or raise guinea fowl with chickens. The imprinting can cause serious problems when the guineas are adults and use their instinctive ways on the chickens which do not understand them.

Their are some people that raise guinea fowl that they take to show and tell which would fit your desired purpose. They were active on Guinea Fowl International. Unfortunately when the Internet switched over from Huddler they never really brought the site back. I don't know whether the archives are available at this time. I believe that they do have an active group on Facebook. You can try searching Facebook for them.

Guineas can be trained to come to a call using a specific call or sound. At least some members trained their guineas to come to a ring tone using treats.

I have trained my guineas to be herded.

If trying to tame keets in the brooder, never approach them from above. You can put some feed in the palm of your hand, hold your hand out flat with the back of your hand touching the bedding and let the keets come to you.

I believe it is @Sydney65 that has super tamed guineas on this forum.

 

[centrarchid]

Personally I will not brood or raise guinea fowl with chickens. The imprinting can cause serious problems when the guineas are adults and use their instinctive ways on the chickens which do not understand them.

Their are some people that raise guinea fowl that they take to show and tell which would fit your desired purpose. They were active on Guinea Fowl International. Unfortunately when the Internet switched over from Huddler they never really brought the site back. I don't know whether the archives are available at this time. I believe that they do have an active group on Facebook. You can try searching Facebook for them.

Guineas can be trained to come to a call using a specific call or sound. At least some members trained their guineas to come to a ring tone using treats.

I have trained my guineas to be herded.

If trying to tame keets in the brooder, never approach them from above. You can put some feed in the palm of your hand, hold your hand out flat with the back of your hand touching the bedding and let the keets come to you.

I believe it is @Sydney65 that has super tamed guineas on this forum.

An intermediate step I use with my brooder-reared chicks is training them to fly first to ledge of brooder when called (usually by name), then from edge of brooder some distance to my hand.

Protocol you describe is identical to what I use with brooder chicks and even fish. No looming over animals as that scares them. I'm also into using a very consistent protocol when entering the room. I want critters to be happy to see me.

Have you ever tried live insects with them. That is what I would be using as a training enticement and reward. We could even go as far as to move into hand-reared spectrum from brooder to get them to bond with us although I do not know how that would fly with human crowds later.

 

[R2elk]

An intermediate step I use with my brooder-reared chicks is training them to fly first to ledge of brooder when called (usually by name), then from edge of brooder some distance to my hand.

By the time my keets are 2 weeks old, they are flying out of the brooder which means I move them from the brooder to the grow out pen at that time. The other option is to put a screen over the brooder.

@Sydney65 should be able to verify if guineas will respond to an individual name. I can't because I do not name any of my poultry. I also go out of my way to not human imprint any of my poultry.

Have you ever tried live insects with them. That is what I would be using as a training enticement and reward. We could even go as far as to move into hand-reared spectrum from brooder to get them to bond with us although I do not know how that would fly with human crowds later.

My keets will at times get a few ants in the brooder with them. This is due to my using sand that I dig from this sand dune as brooder bedding. The ants don't last long. They also quickly eliminate any millers that get into their brooder.

As adults my guineas will gather around my feet when I open the coop door into their pen during miller season to gobble up the millers as I knock them off the door frame. This is the only time my guineas will come within touching distance of me.

I do not give treats and do not make any attempts to get my guineas to be pets or friendly to people.

 

[Sydney65]

Well, if I have a slacker on the other side of the yard and call her (it's always a her), she comes. I use their names when I talk to them and handle them, and they do tend to turn around and look at me when I say their names. Whether that's recognition or chance -
I saw a similar discussion over whether or not dogs understand words. My only question was if they can't, why do I have to spend so much time spelling out certain ones?
I think goons are like everything else, the amount of time you put in with them, the more you get out of them.

 

[SamLockwood]

I don't raise any of my birds to be pets, and only did some "imprinting" so that if they're distressed they can feel safe fleeing towards me and so I have fewer problems doing yard work, gathering eggs. etc.

I did raise mine with a group of chicks (and eventually the three remaining adult chickens from my original flock) and this has advantages & disadvantages. Some say it's impossible and they'll kill your chickens, others don't have any problems. My opinion is that that it's dependent on a whole host of variables.

I only mention the above so you'll understand my comments about the trainability of guinea fowl.

Guineas are unlike other poultry because, in my opinion, they're semi-feral. The closest thing to raising them was having Tibetan Mastiff dogs. In both cases, they're very pack / flock oriented, very protective, and aloof to hostile to strangers by inclination. Guinea fowl are indifferent to human care & attention, whereas other poultry is conditioned by thousands of years of selective breeding to be dependent on humans.

By contrast, all of my chickens are extremely friendly. Especially the crested legbars I acquired with the guineas: the legbars will literally jump in your lap if you let them, and I'll have a few follow me around as I'm doing chores all day. Many of them will let you touch them if you don't move too suddenly, etc. all the usual "pet chicken" behaviors people talk about.

The guineas are "friendly" to the extent the don't run away from me, and there's a couple that will sometimes "hang out" nearby when I'm on the back porch on a sunny afternoon, but they absolutely hate being touched or picked up. The only way I can do wound care on them is to grab them when they're sleeping, and even then it's long sleeves and work gloves because if they decide to get away from you they have surprisingly sharp nails on those huge clown-feet of theirs.

To anyone else they either run away, or form up in a knot of 5-10 birds and march towards the threat making that ear-splitting "CHI-CHI-CHI!" sound. I can't stress just how loud they are when they're upset. I've worked at race tracks for 27 years and even to me the noise is disorienting at "ground zero."

They do this when they see hawks, the neighbor's dog the one time it wandered up the driveway, passing deer. They even do it when the neighbor's kids got lost and strayed near the fence line.

I have gotten them to come when called (as long as they're not agitated by something else), I've gotten better at herding them though. I'm actually at the point with them I usually only have to spread my arms in the right direction and they turn around and head the opposite way (like when they wanted to pick a fight with the front-loader that was bringing fencing supplies to my yard).

At about 12 to 18 weeks they were terrible about freaking out about every little thing: a lawnmower starting in the distance, the wind, etc. and would either flee or charge whatever offended them at random. For three weeks they terrorized any squirrel that touched ground within 30 yards of them.

As adults they've calmed down quite a bit, but they still aren't at all what I'd call "friendly" to anything that isn't familiar to them.

They're also extremely flock-oriented, which is why many people say that they're stupid. What I find is that if one or two get separated from the flock, they panic. They'll either start pacing back and forth if there's a barrier in between them and the flock, or if they can't see them they'll start calling (A two tone "guh-wahk!" for the females and slightly slower "CHI-CHI-CHI!" for the males).

If a male & female pair off, they'll be OK on their own (they'll often wander off this way), but otherwise my guineas will either do things as a whole group or the flock may split into two or three groups for a little while, but as a rule they get very panicky if they feel isolated from the group.

Overall, while I'm not saying you can't try what you're thinking of, it's going to take a lot more work than doing the same thing with chickens, and you're going to have to assess which of your guineas is even remotely suited for that task.

 

[Sydney65]

I had to double check, bc the conversation is so familiar that I thought @R2elk was punking me with one of our old ones.
Yes, I have a reputation for "tame guineas". I don't particularly see them that way- but I don't have chickens to know the difference.
I've had 2 hens hatch, and I let the hen raise them until I sell them. But If I buy them, then I raise them, bc they're mine.
They're raised amongst the household and everything in it, us, the dogs, the tv, the noises. They're used to being handled,having their feet washed, nails trimmed and hand feeding. They grow up having snuggle time with the dogs and me on the sofa.
Numi loves her showers, as does Willow. Those two, as adults, I still bring inside once in awhile, whether for their benefit or mine. We still congregate on the sofa.
There are 2 remaining male jumbos- one I hatched and raised, the other was Mama's, and refused to be sold. Eventually, even that one got used to being handled and having his nails done, but he is still quite wild and spends some nights up in a tree during freezing temps. Not often, but sometimes he gets an urge. No one else has a desire to be outside at sunset. Both of the jumbos love babies, whoever they belong to.
I remember being warned about imprinting. I've not seen that to be a problem. Everyone moves into the coop and becomes flock members. Numi lived inside for several months, moved into the coop, mated and raised her 1st hatch last year.
I had a jumbo male who didn't trouble himself with fighting the other males, he didn't see them as competition. He startled me one day his 1st season by sneaking up behind me to bite my leg. It didn't hurt,didn't break the skin, and he never did it again.
I'm not sure what the OPs goal is, since I know squat abt chickens. There are several who have a house guinea. One walks hers on a leash and takes him to school for visits, in a diaper. I guess some show them. Numi was appalled by the idea of a diaper-and never had any accidents. Willow isn't quite that advanced. They have their own blanket to lay on when they come in,just incase.
We got ours to work for us for tick control. We spoil them rotten, they have the fort knox of set ups, and we're crushed when we lose them.
Tricks? Mama taught them this - she did love her celery -

But - I spend A LOT if time with them. I'm a grandma that babysits and my daughter is a teacher. So when keets come along in the summer, I have that time to spend. The rest of the year, the one thing I insist on is my free time. Some women shop, I hang out with the animals.

 

[centrarchid]

OP's intent is to have the adults tame enough to allow close contact with about anyone while birds are used for demonstrations. I can do using chickens with or without imprinting on humans (me). The chickens I use are not typical chickens in they are particularly flexible in terms of behavior. My hope is the Guinea Fowl are also flexible with respect to their behavior patterns.

 

[Sydney65]

OP's intent is to have the adults tame enough to allow close contact with about anyone while birds are used for demonstrations. I can do using chickens with or without imprinting on humans (me). The chickens I use are not typical chickens in they are particularly flexible in terms of behavior. My hope is the Guinea Fowl are also flexible with respect to their behavior patterns.

Until it's tried, who knows. I wasn't expecting to see a guinea walk into school on a leash and accept being surrounded by kids, either.
I will say that such cases are singletons that were either orphans, injured or rejected by the flock. Mine have always been small groups, 6 or 7 in a brooder. Numi was a singleton.

 

[mkeawsh]

Trained my guineas to come when I whistle the tune - "This Old Man" because they know they will get a mealworm treat. They can be acres away in the woods and come running back when they hear me whistling. That is as tame as they are. Can not touch them but will get quite close to me.