Barred From the Garden and Culling a Guinea Fowl
April 24, 2009|Comments (13)
If you hadn’t guessed, I really love my chickens. Honestly, I haven’t found a single feature of chicken ownership to not be worthwhile. But at the moment, the chickens have been locked out of the garden. Barred. (Okay, I fully realized that was a really dreadful chicken pun but couldn’t resist).
If you can’t watch the video click here.
Perhaps my favorite bonus feature of our chickens (you know… the features that aren’t edible or useful as fertilizer) would be the bug eating and scratching of the soil. They are walking squawking pesticides and aeraors. This is great. Super. Unless you have just planted your garden beds with fragile seedlings unable to withstand all that pecking and raking — then you may consider throwing up some temporary fencing until the coast is clear.
And then, bring on the chickens. But not always the guineas. As some of you may know, we have guinea fowl patrolling the property. These tick-eating noise polluters must be culled just as any other member of the flock. Last night, we killed another guinea which is now sitting in my refrigerator getting ready to hang out in some brine before becoming dinner. New keets are just around the corner.
One of the main reasons we culled the guinea is because it spent most of its days harassing our chickens and stressing them out. When this happens, it is time to cull the offender.
I know that the thought of eating an animal that once lived in your backyard grosses some of you out and I try not to go into a ton of detail on the butchering of our critters for your sake.
Would you eat a guinea? Have you eaten a guinea?
P.S. If you want to see who won the Earth Day Green Giveaway then click here. You will be so glad that you did.
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I have never eaten Guinea, but I have no problems eating animals that I had raised.
I haven’t tried it and I definitely would give it a try.
I have some quail in the freezer to be eaten tomorrow…
Guineas are outstanding eating. When my mom was a girl and they were still on the farm my Czech grandma would bake them in sour cream. The meat is dark and rich. I tried re-creating Grandma’s dish as best mom could remember but it curdled. Tasted great, though.
Judy
My guineas harass my chickens terribly but I couldn’t bear the thought of killing them. I do need to do something, though!
I have one rooster that “free-ranges” he is able to fly in and out of the chicken yard, and that scurvy rascal plucked up some pole beans I had planted by the porch. My garden is fenced but I thought I’d take advantage of the extra space by planting a few vegetables in my flower bed.
I have not embraced my inner chicken as yet – in fact – I mostly want their eggs to be in my innards! Our chickens will not be free range – for several reasons primarily an overabundance of predators in our area. But they are definitely interesting critters – we never did eat the guineas – most met their deaths on the highway which passes along the eastern edge of our place. Not into roadkill. Buttercup does live it up!
I’m chuckling here because I just posted about one of my chicks (they’re still pullets for now) with an attitude…I’m hoping it’s not a rooster! So, as long as she/he keeps that attitude in check will be okay…otherwise, it might be chicken ‘n dumplings!
I have not eaten guinea, but i have been thinking of getting some, maybe not to eat, but who knows!
I’d love to be able to eat my own meat. At least, you know what you are eating!
Cheers and have a wonderful weekend,
Rosa
I didn’t even know you could eat guinea! But hey, I guess you can eat anything, right? I’d certainly try it if I had a good recipe. Or, more aptly put, if *Jake* had a good recipe since he’s the meat chef around here!
I like the pun! Our chickens are also under strict orders not to help out in the garden!
We had guinea’s from one day old keets in June until we sold our house and moved to Alabama in April. If you can believe it the people who bought our house kept the gunieas there. SMART PEOPLE! I shed a tear to leave them and could tell you that no I wouldn’t eat any of our first bunch. Now maybe later if I had a lot and you know…they got into trouble…but I doubt I could ever get my daughter, the “guinea whisperer” to eat them and she might not ever talk to me again. So we’ll just leave it at a no! I’ve visited your site a few times and really enjoy it here. I do hope to get more guineas to keep the ticks under control.
Thanks!
Dear Razors,
How many acres do you have?
We have three acres. That’s all!
Yes I would eat a guinea, they are not above getting eatten for behaving badly…..LOL