Bad Boys

Bad boy, bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you.

This is the mostly male portion of my guinea flock that has been kicked out of the main part of the coop for the remainder of the winter. Until spring, they have been remanded to the grow out pen inside the coop that I use to introduce new pullets to the flock, only the door between them and everyone else is CLOSED!

I made this move after making some after dark coop observations. I like to go out well after dark a few times a week and do an accurate head count (impossible during the day when everyone is scattered) and a body score check on the birds on my health watch list. It has been during these checks that I observed the guineas, who unlike the chickens have full night vision, working from perch to perch, harassing the sleeping hens. Pecking, pushing, generally being the vicious little German SS soldiers whose helmets they resemble.

Now these little turds would NEVER try this stunt during the day because our resident flock of roosters would rain hellfire and damnation upon their heads. I have seen a guinea try to hassle a hen over a morsel of food, only to have not one but three roosters swoop in to defend her. Our spur-sporting roosters probably outweigh the guineas 2:1 so they incite a good bit of fear and concomitant good manners in the clown-headed group of fools. They know they have to lie low while the big boys are about but once the lights turn down low, they set to work as the bully birds they are. And so they are now in guinea jail.

I keep telling all the animals that to keep up with the times, I am doing some Marie Kondo “KonMari” farm tidying—I’m going to evaluate them all and if they don’t give me joy and if they insist on being mean to others, scale fences they aren’t supposed to (I’m looking at you goats), dig holes to China for no reason (ahem pigs) or use the donkeys/goats/pigs as soccer balls (yeah, that’s you Kas), then we might have to consider some barnyard “decluttering”. Or at the very least fold all their things vertically. 😂