Guinea go splody

Splody is a technical term meaning: Exploded.

I had the bright idea to let the birds out of the coop tonight, spread their wings so to speak. Take flight, eat snow, run around, all under the restrictive supervision of me, armed with a broom with which to poke puppies who got too near. In with the chickens are the guineas. This is fine. Rather, was fine.

It was getting dark and all the chickens were near the door so I shooed them in and wandered around the front of the coop to sneak around back with the broom to herd the guineas. Have you tried this? Idiot *sigh*. I kept the broom up and walked slowly, they moved, all's good. chirp chirp blah blah. They'd look up one way, I'd carefully move the broom that way, look another way, move it again. Good, good we're to the door. Clicky noise and shh SHHH SHHH noises and 3 of the 4 go in. I stop, 4th one (pearl one, of course) stops, thinks about it. I wave the broom a bit, she turns towards the door.

FREAK OUT, pitches a fit and launches herself to the mountain of snow. So, I climb up it a bit and start to head down another ridge so I can go around her and shoo her back. She launches herself into the air, to where? To the coop? Nahh. A tree? Nope. Another mountain? NOPE.

Power pole. Whatever, she'll come down. Oooh... she came down.

Sitting with Moose eating supper and all of the sudden there's BZZZZZZZZ and the power is out. Dogs, who are outside, go absolutely nutso. Launch ourselves to window to find dog carrying off guinea. Yell, scream, grab guinea carcass, just buuuurned smell, feathers singed, foot blown out, large holes in the skin. Just a mess.

Call the power company and say "Can you help me? A bird flew into the pole and knocked the power out." No, I didn't tell them it was MY bird, nor that I had the carcass in the house. Dogs carried it off I said. Happens all the time the guy said, he guarantees the bird was dead before it hit the ground. I sure hope so, I can't imagine anything else. Oh yeah, and my yard is blown in. No problem, he says, they'll be out tonight.

I absolutely could not believe that happened. Of all the places to launch ones self, the power pole and then instead of jumping off, what, taste the wire? OI. I think we may be done with guineas. Mooses' decision as they are his venture. We love having them around for ticks and what-have-you, but man oh man.

Anyone else have a story like this?

wow nothing quite like that for sure! I don't know if anyone can top that one for guinea exploits, and yes I can believe only a guinea could do that!!

Guineas are not known for their high intelligence. I'm sure it's in there somewhere... maybe.

I had one that flew and landed on top of our telephone pole one and sat there for a day in the heavy falling snow. Then it flew into a tree where it sat until it got so weak with hunger, I knocked it out of the tree with a snowball. I had a shoveled area for it to land in for days. Even put out straw and feed to try and entice it down. But nope. It just sat there squawking and squawking.

Still, Guineas are pretty cool birds. Just don't expect them to be all that smart.

Sorry to hear you lost one. I guess you could say, it went out with a bang.

I was just so... I laughed about it not because it was funny, but because -really-? Like witnessing someone do something stupid and badly injure themselves, you laugh first because it just can't have happened that way.

Or maybe I'm just overly dark.

I'm thinking if it can fly, and I can't catch it to clip its wings, until we have a massively top-covered run, we should stay away from the situation. I feel terrible that it lost its life, especialy since it was my idea to let everyone out. When it was only the one guinea, he was oot and aboot all spring/summer/fall and went onto rooves to get away from things, not even the trees!

Funny, I thought of guineas as quite crafty until now. The one, the original one, taught all my girls how to catch grasshoppers and hunt for ticks.

We had a squirrel knock our power out.

I'm sorry Sweetened, but this one really made me laugh. We've had guineas. Hub calls them 'Annoying Birds' cuz of all the noise they make. I've noticed more ticks since we got rid of them, though. Aren't you able to clip their wings at night while they're sleeping?

Not about pea brained fowls, but about electricity.

Used to work at a golf course that featured a pitching machine. This monster machine would hurl balls, with astonishing ferocity and accuracy, at some hapless soul, quivering above the spray painted plate, holding a bat.

We had to practice a frequent amount of tactful customer relations due to this machine. It was, for example NOT FOR CHILDREN! This was no slow pitch machine gently lobbing underhand pitches. Oh no! So when we saw a parent pop little Johnny in the cage with the provided helmet sliding down over his eyes, yikes, we stepped in. If parent was testosterone driven and stupid, we asked him to observe what happened when the balls hit the chain link cage, and then decide if he wanted kid in there or not. We'd pop in a quarter, push the button and KAPOW! If parent had half a brain they said thank you and removed child to where his teeth would last for another day. Most parents immediately realized that this machine was not a toy.

The machine was fickle. It was adversely affected by the weather. In humid conditions the pitches would go high, or low, and sometimes a little wide. In regular weather conditions, it could be counted on to be dead accurate. So if rain was threatening, we watched the pitching machine with extra vigilance. It was an accident waiting to happen.

One hot, summer day an able looking adult male entered the cage, put on the helmet, hefted a few bats and took a few practice swings, rolled his shoulders, plugged in his quarters and assumed the position over the plate. The first few pitches were fine, then all hell broke loose! The machine went mental! Balls were hurling out at top speed, which is NOT the normal setting, they were coming without a pause in between, they were high, they were wide, they were ricocheting all over the batting cage. The machine did not shut off after 6 balls but just kept flinging them out. THe man flung the bat down, huddled against the wall, arms over his head and screamed.

Inside the building we were in a panic and thankfully one of us thought to run to the breaker box and push the big red button, bringing everything at the golf course to an electric halt. The machine stopped, the man went to the bar for a drink or two. On the house.

Out we went with a screwdriver to take the cover plate off the motor area and see what there was to see. A little frog, crispy and smoking, had got in there and while two feet were on two electrical posts, he had set the rest of his wet little body on another two posts. The ensuing electrical glitch made the batting machine go crazy. The frog did not survive.

Don't mess with electricity.

oh that is a funny mental picture Uno!
I can just imagine finding the fried frog in the machine...

mirycreek wrote:oh that is a funny mental picture Uno!
I can just imagine finding the fried frog in the machine...

I can now! LOL. I love your stories Uno, you tell them so well.

Sucellus, catching a guinea is a fine principle, but it seems you haven't met our guineas. You don't simply catch our guineas, you create a spectacular scene in black and black (no light) of the sound of flailing feathers, peafowl death cries and gnashing claws, and they seem to have stupid-good aim in the middle of the night, without light. It's like a scene out of Jurassic Park, and though I enjoyed the movie, I don't plan on seeing it in 3D for a reason. HAH.

I suppose it would be fine if things were the way they used to be: no puppies and having not lost birds to predators. Now I want to be out there to whack the dogs with the soft end of the broom and make a big deal so they don't even look at a chicken without flinching. They're generally good, but a lone chicken is a curious plaything, and with how quickly they grabbed hold of that Kentucky fried guinea last night, they're not ready to be left alone with the boids.

Can you imagine? A hen falls asleep dust bathing (which I always find hilarious because they look half dead, sometimes all dead if covered in dust), puppy has spaz out of "DEAD THING I CAN EAT" *Chomp*. I'm not quite to the point where I'm prepared to have another chicken munching dog on the property. If the snow ever melts, we can get our temporary fencing up and they can be oot and aboot, then the guineas can come and go as they please.

We shall see! One guinea totaled the tick problem in our yard. It was bad enough at one point that stepping outside turned into some type of consumption horror movie where arachnids formed from beneath your feet and ate you toe to head, leaving only your skeleton standing with some home alone movie cover face. One guinea, one week, hardly any ticks. The efficiency of four three seems uncanny!

Haha, catching guineas can be FUN.

And yeah, guineas aren’t the sharpest pencils in the pack, that’s for sure. Combine that with their spazztic nature and you’ve got a volatile mixture. I’ve never had any ride the lightening and explode, but I did have a group of four adults freak out and fly through their coop window. Amazingly none hurt themselves. I was not impressed to say the least.

Still, I’d like to have guineas again one day. Without glass. And electricity. Maybe…

Honestly, I never knew guineas could fly. When I was a kid back home the neighbours had some and they ranged over a much larger area than chickens ever do.

Used to drive my brother crazy when he was zipping up and down the road on his little motorbike and those guineas would pop up out of a ditch to cross the road. All 40 of them. In single file. While brother stood there with bike. Waiting for them to get across. Why can't they cross the road in a lump? No. Single file. With a large gap in between, but not large enough to bike through without killing one. HE hated those birds.

UNO....Did you know they can "swim" too? When we lived on the Island we had a big irrigation pond.

It was 100 feet wide, 150 feet long, and 19 1/2 deep.

We had to catch a guinea hen that had just hatched her chicks, she would have taken the whole works into

the bush if she wasn't caught.

Well we were chasing her with a net ( must have looked like the looney bin) and be darned she came to the

side of the pond and decided to fly across! We stood and looked at each other like, well she's a goner,

"wrong" she managed to fly half way across, then couldn't make the whole way, so down she went on the

water and proceeded to "swim" the rest of the way We couldn't believe our eyes, then the chicks were

running around and we went after them, as she was now calling them, they got to the side of the pond and

some actually got in the water and swam too. Thankfully they didn't get to far before we caught them.

But the funniest thing we "ever" seen a guinea do was being chased by an eagle---WHERE was our video

camera?? We had one big cedar tree in the pasture, near the neighbours bush, an eagle swooped down and was

so determined to get that guinea that it actually got down on the ground and was HOPPING around the cedar

tree after the guinea, they went 'round and 'round the bottom of the tree quite a few times, then the

guinea saw it's chance and flew off into the neighbours bush. The eagle couldn't get off the ground fast

enough, and took off in total disgust. We were just killing ourselves laughing. That was some disgusted

eagle.

A fishing net is a great tool for catching poultry. Try that in the dark, Sweetened.

I always sneak up from behind then quickly grab them by the ankles and pull toward me, swift and quiet. Hang em upside down so they calm down fast. If they lift their head, gently push it back down so all the blood drains into it and they go into a trance.