McQueen, the City Guinea
by Claude in Texas, USA
In late July this year, I received a call one morning from a very distressed lady named Connie who lives in an upscale residential area in North Dallas. It seems that Connie, on a whim, bought two keets from a roadside stand a year before and raised the two birds as pets. The guineas, both hens, became very popular in the neighborhood (except for one neighbor across the street), and kids and adults alike got pleasure from watching the birds do the things we know that guineas do. The day before Connie's call, the garbage truck had run over and killed one of the birds, and to make matters worse, the driver thought it was funny. McQueen, the survivor of the two, was very lonely and appeared to be in a state of severe grief.
Sooo, Connie found me on a breeder's list and called to see what I thought about her getting another guinea to keep McQueen company. Knowing what I know about the difficulty of blending adult guineas that are strangers to each other, I told Connie that in the best of cases it would take several weeks of careful training to make it work. I suggested that Connie bring McQueen out to our farm for a while since I have a coop that would lend itself to this type of training. (My large, portable coop, which some of you have seen or of which you have seen pictures, has a separate "apartment" designed to accommodate adding new birds to my existing free ranging flock.)
The following Saturday, Connie and her husband, Terry, brought McQueen to Heritage Farm, and we moved her into the apartment. So, she was locked up next to my four-year-old birds, which she could see and peck through the welded wire that separated the two areas. During the day, my older birds free ranged while McQueen stayed in the coop. After five or six weeks, I let McQueen in with the other birds at night. At first, there was some pecking, but not a lot. The first night, McQueen roosted by herself on a bar below the other birds. The next night, one of the males was roosting on the lower bar with McQueen; and by the third night, they were all roosting together on the top bar!
After a couple of weeks of living together at night (sounds sinful, doesn't it?), this past Saturday, I made the decision to let them all out to free range together. Right after daylight (drum roll) on Saturday morning, I opened the coop door, and the older guins ran out. McQueen hesitated only briefly, and then she ran out, too. I kept an eye on them all day as I was working around the farm, and McQueen stayed with the flock. She would always be on the edge of the group, but never too far away. That night they all marched back in, with McQueen being the last one through the door. Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, so I think it's safe to say that McQueen has truly found a new HOME!
An interesting aside to this story: Even though McQueen had been raised as a pet, if I tried to pet her, she was very standoffish. With patience (not my long suit), I could finally get her cornered and stroke her back, which she grudgingly allowed me to do while she was pecking my hand. Connie drove out to the Farm one day after not seeing McQueen for a month. As soon as Connie stepped into the coop, McQueen came up to her and let Connie do anything she wanted! McQueen remembered her Guinea Mom, that much was clear!
And to finish this story off, at least for now, Connie finally realized that she was hooked on the Guinea Mom thing. Being the astute person that I am (LOL), I recognized this fact also. So two weeks ago, I gave her two two-day-old keets, and she is now happily mothering them. Her neighborhood will be whole again; and, hopefully, the garbage truck driver has been fired!
When I started raising guineas four years ago to combat the grasshoppers, I never would have imagined that these outrageous birds would lead to meeting wonderful people like Connie and Terry. Serendipities exist often where we least expect them.
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