Operation Guinea Rescue

It’s 10:03pm I just completed Operation Guinea Rescue. I’m pooped.

Guinea fowl get a bad rap as “poor mothers” who have huge death losses of their babies when allowed to raise them. But they really don’t deserve that rep.

They can’t help that they evolved as a bird of the African savannah where nesting during the dry season means you don’t really need to worry much about keeping your babies from chilling in the cold morning dew. They have huge broods that scatter about in near desert conditions and do just fine. But ask them to raise babies where the grass is tall and soaking wet in the chilly early mornings and bad things happen. Near 100 percent death losses to chilling and predators are more common than not.

I wanted to give Mama Guinea a chance to raise them all outside—after all, we are a bit droughty right now and in the main yard, the grass is short and she had 3 of the males on guard duty. So I let her be last night after I found them and decided to watch and wait.

Tonight as I did chores, I could see the babies were already weaker and Mama Guinea was seriously stressed from trying to keep track of 14 youngsters with other poultry, dogs, cats, sheep, you name it, making her nervous. She couldn’t settle in one spot and the tired babies were having trouble sticking with her. It was only a matter of time before one was lost, so I decided to intervene.

Now Guineas are a bit clannish and Mama Guinea had not one, but 3, baby daddies looking out for her. They were useless for any actual parenting but more than ready to do battle with anyone, including me, who got too close.

After donning a thick sweatshirt (so comfy on an 80 degree night) I pulled up the hood, grabbed a 5-gallon pail, ducked my head and went in fast. This resulted in 4 screaming guineas instantly on the attack. Guineas like to dive bomb and back off so I endured their kamikaze body slams (claws first) and tried to focus on baby snatching.

Try to imagine trying to catch rolling, bouncing ping pong balls while in the middle of a violent dodge ball game (with spiked balls) and that’s basically what my evening consisted of.

I finally managed to grab every baby in sight and ran for it back to the barn.

13 babies.

Drat it-one was missing. Double drat it-all in the brooder were panicking and crying loudly for a mother whom they were already very bonded too.

Triple drat—I now had to catch mom.

I went back to the scene of our original battle and found with relief that she has gathered up the missing baby. But upon spying me, she and her cohorts quickly conceded the field and decided to instead retreat...to the shelterbelt of thick, briar-filled brush.

I sighed and fetched my bird-catching fishnet. It was going to be a long night.

And so it was I spent a rather long time crashing about in the underbrush, clad still in my sweatshirt and now, in the deepening darkness, a headlamp, trying to find and catch Mama
Guinea. The mosquitos had a heyday with those parts of me exposed and what they missed, the stinging nettle found. Guineas came move much faster in such condition and I finally lost track of her and gave up, coming in the house and consigning myself to a brooder full of sad guinea babies.

But a second wind sent me back out and catch her I did. She and one of the males tried the “hunker down and let me walk by” approach but their ugly white clown heads gave them away. I swooshed the net over mom, snatched the baby in my pocket and scuttled out before the male could say boo.

Mama and her entire family are now settled into the Red Barn Inn with a huge bedroom of their own complete with room service mealworms, bedside water and complete safety and privacy. As soon as babies get some running legs and decent feathers, they may roam once more. Until then, I think we all need a good night’s sleep!