Guinea Hens!

This spring our order of Guinea fowl chicks arrived. The original shipment contained 30 healthy babies, the minimum number which the hatchery would ship.  Though we only really needed a few, we decided that 30 was better than none, since we'd been dealing with ticks on the dogs and had read that guineas are great at decimating ticks and other unsavory insect type creatures.  They grew wonderfully in our brooder inside the barn and after about a month and a half, when they were almost full grown, we set them up with food and water and a place to roost in one of the outdoor buildings, where they would have access to wander around outside and eat all the bugs they could hold.  The first few nights went as we had hoped, with them free ranging during the day and returning to the shed at night to roost and keep out of the way of potential predators.  On the fourth morning, however, when we went to check on them, only five remained.  There were no signs of a forced entry or any sort of predatory catastrophe, no feathers or blood, etc.  We assume that something must have spooked them in the night and, being rather excitable creatures by nature, the 25 over reacted and flew the coop, literally.  After looking high and low (and on the neighbors' land) for several days, we found no sign and still have no idea where the rogue 25 ended up, though on occasion we think we may hear their distant squeaky door squawking somewhere in the wilds of West Pawlet.

The remaining five have become guardians of the barn and spend their days skittering around the barnyard in unison, eating tons of bugs and shrieking at the cows or Oscar or nothing.  They seem to exalt in their own voices and their ability to change them from clucking to some otherworldly, nondescript cacophonous screeching.  We quite love them!  I am especially fond of their visits to the milking parlor, where they insist on setting up shop right in front of the cows, who seem to find them mildly annoying.

Four of the five, all a-dither because one of their brethren has ventured into the barn
on its own.....Didn't he know the cow parade has started and the judging needs to be done?

Cautiously, the four venture in.....there his is, the fifth!  Oh, thank heavens he is safe

amidst these savage beasts!   Who knows what would have happened had they not braved the

depths of the cow barn!

"Hurry! There are cows to harass, people to screech at and bugs to terrorize!"