Too Many Ticks!!

Cyngbaeld · #21 06/10/13, 05:51 PM

Yes, you should give additional copper. Most mineral mixes don't have enough.
I've never seen a tick on one of my goats. The dogs will have ticks all over them if they get copper deficient. Soon as I give them some copper the ticks all fall off and they don't get any more till they are deficient again. I put a pinch of copper sulfate in their feed now and then.

GraceAlice · #22 06/10/13, 06:00 PM

I got 17 guineas and by the end of the year, we had one left. The hens would sit on nests out in the trees, and things would just pick em off. Coyotes would come in the middle of the day and eat them!

Minelson · #23 06/10/13, 06:17 PM

Well this was helpful. I'm going to get some Guinea Keets in a few days and I was only going to get 4. Maybe I should get 10 instead. hmmm

punchiepal · #24 06/10/13, 08:19 PM

We had keets in the incubator 2 yrs ago. It was too cold for them outside when they hatched so they were in the house till they feathered out. Every time I fed them I would call "hey guinea, guinea" kinda like you would chickens if you were feeding them. To this day I can call them and get them to come up near me.

BTW - don't let keets get wet before they are feathered out b/c they can die from getting wet. Get one of the smaller waterers like for quail so they can't get in it and get wet.

Cyngbaeld · #25 06/10/13, 09:10 PM

Put some chicks in with the keets and you'll have a lot more success with getting the keets to roost in the coop.

Backfourty,MI. · #26 06/11/13, 06:54 AM

We have Guinnea's & have never seen a tick or flea on any of our animals. Some people think they are noisy & don't like them but we really Love them. Really Cool birds.

As keets you'll have to brood them like you would chicks or ducklings until about 8 weeks of age or so. Then transfer them to an outside pen that has a top, perch & predator proof & keep them in there for about 2 weeks so they know this is where they eat & sleep & they should stick around.

nehimama · #27 06/11/13, 07:58 AM

Absolute best thing to do is to put fertile guinea eggs under a broody chicken hen, and let her do all the work for you. I just raided a guinea nest a couple of days ago, and put 16 eggs under a large, broody Barred Rock hen. Have done this countless times in the past, and it always works beautifully. Chicken-raised guineas are much calmer than their wild counterparts. (Those raised by guineas.)

hiddensprings · #28 06/11/13, 10:42 PM

I've tried guineas so many times and have never had success. I mean, I raise them up just fine, but as soon as I turn them loose to wonder around the farm, they run away from home. Or more likely a fox, coyote, or whatever is eating them. This year has been especially bad as my poor free-range laying hens are locked in the barn because I have a fox that I can't seem to catch.
As for the ticks, they are terrible here. But I swear, they jump right off my livestock and right on to me whenever I pass by. Guess I am just super sweet tick food

motdaugrnds · #29 06/12/13, 08:50 AM

We have silver-laced wyandotte hens. Last year we found a nest of guiinea eggs that had been raided. I put the eggs left in an incubator and 6 guineas hatched out. I placed these keets in the brooder part of our chicken house, shutting the door so the rest of the fowl could not get in there. Then when the keets were about a week old, I put a white wyandotte hen in with them who had been nesting on about a dozen eggs. (A snake had gotten into her nest and disturbed it; so I wasn't sure the eggs would hatch.) She sat on her eggs there in one side of the brooder (where the light was not shining) and the keets eventually started nesting beside her. Her eggs did not hatch and she winded up scratching up her nest completely. But she DID ADOPT ALL THE KEETS. (It was real funny watching her trying to teach the "independent" keets to come when called and scratch for their food. And half the time it was the mother wyandott trying to keep up with the keets.) It worked out real well and those keets are now part of the guineas that stay on our property. (A few may nest outside the hen house; but they all show up in the mornings when I toss out the cracked corn.)

A little funny side story: This year a wyandott hen hatched "one" egg. She treated that little chicken like royalty protecting and teaching it. In the mean time I discovered one of my buff Orpington hens had been scared off her nest by my little Karakachan puppy. She did not return to her nest so I incubated them. Four hatched! At this time the mother wyandott and her one baby were still in the brooder pen; so when the young hatchlings were about a week old, I put them out in the brooder area with the wyandott and her chicklet. The mother would NOT adopt the new buff chickens. (I decided since the wyandott and her chicklet had been roosting on the top part of the roost, they could be in with the rest of the chickens. When I did this I discovered these 2 would not stay together. After a couple of days I decided to put the wyandott chicklet in with the orpington chicklings.) The little wyandott chicken is now mothering the orpington chicklets. Ha Ha Ha

The Tinker · #30 07/05/13, 09:12 AM

For fleas, try the DE infusion with orange oil, or rub the coats with Chrysanthemum flowers. I was actually on here looking to see if I could determine why goats seem to be resistant to ticks and fleas. Our dogs get both horribly and run in the same fields as the goats, often with the goats. Wondered if there was something in the oils on the goat hair that fleas and ticks find repellent. Gonna try Cyngbaeld's hint of copper in the dog food, see if that helps any.