I just saw an older thread, so have started anew
I have had Chickens and Guineafowls together for many years and with no
inter-racial bullying at all
Even when I also had chicken-roosters, I found that chickens and GFs kept
their own quite separate "pecking orders"
Initially I used to lock them all up at night in the same henhouse
Then as the GFs got older sometimes one or two would be difficult that
afternoon-evening and would end up getting locked out of the henhouse shed
So then this mad chatttering goes on back and forwards between the GFs
My translation of their conversation would approxiamate to this
......."where the blood hell are you, come to this roost to bed"
......."I can't get in, the big door is shut, you come out here with me !"
...."I can't get outside, the door's shut on this side too".....
etc etc
After that noisy GF converstion, any locked outside of the henhouse shed
would then fly up and perch on top of the shed roof, immediately above their
friends
One day as they matured in age and settled into this environment, I actually
saw the cogs turn inside a GFs head......and they have a mighty small brain
I saw a GF standing outside the hen's shed and it turned it's head back and
forward over and over looking first one way towards the shed, which has a
roof maybe 2 metres 6 feet high, and off about 30 yards away, to one side
of it a large Eucalyptus tree about 20 metres 60 feet high
After awhile sizing up the situation that GF decided that 20 metres was a
lot more than 2 metres and ever since my GFs have roosted about halfway up
in that tree at night
The lowest branch is about 7 metres 20 feet straight up. The GFs have to do
a full power burn, and are like a Harrier JumpJet doing a vertical take-off
to go straight up to get to that first branch. Once there they branch hop
to get to where they roost, about 10 metres high up
They would often choose to go in with the chickens if rain was likely
overnight.....mostly during the winter part of the year. They roost in the
roof support rafters whereas the chickens have roosts set up about a metre
high
During the day the GFs would roam easily 500 m in every direction.
Sometimes they would get startled by something, then they'd fly in all the
way to the house
Now, some 17 years on, I have just one remaining GF the sole survivor of my
original flock. By day it roams far and wide by itself while the chickens
are usually confined to a fenced in area of about 1/8 th acre or 500m2
When the GF sees I've let the hens out it rushes over to fly over the low
fence and be with them. Nowadays that it has no other GF companions it
appreciates it's chicken friends all the more I guess.
It often chooses to get locked up with them if rain is expected and
occasionally at other times
Personally I really LOVE baby GF chicks. I think they look like little
TIGERS with their striped colourings
cheerio
--
"Save the Cheerleader, Save the World"
.....HEROES ep 5 Oct 2006
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