Wish i was more rural... am from Queens Ny but now live in Sunny Florida. I am totally freaked out by the flying coakaraoaches here.... ANyway, i have always wanted chickens and a goat...i have been anticipating that the goat will keep the lawn mowed and spare my 13 yr old from breathing the fumes from the gas powered mower...and give me organic milk and the chicks will supply the eggs someday... My 8 yr old went to play fiddle at the local pioneer festival and lo and behold....came back with 2 chicks! I love them!! But so unknowledgable. And i want to keep them together with the guinea pigs. Right now they are bored silly and in a lundry basket as we try to figure out how to make a cage, or coop that can accomidate both outside. Has anyone heard if one can give the other deseases? I read about all other farm animals sharing the same area but no guinea pigs. I read that as long as rabbits are above the chickens, that secnario works ok becasue the chickens move the rabbit poop around....but i have guinea pigs and they are not rabbits.. Any one have a set up that i can make in my backyard where these 2 can hang out together and it is easiest to maintain and sanitary...as i had them in the same cage indoors for a few minutes and they seem to enjoy each others company.. But the Guinea pigs poop so much and i don't know if the chicks will eat their poop and vise versa. I have a grapefruit and starfuit tree on the side of my house. and lots of bees in that area...and 60% of the day is sunny. at the back by the avocado tree is mostly shaded and the ground is 90% dirt. Some fire ants are here and there. Is there any book that talks about this? I am grateful for any direction or adivse.
You really would be better served by sheep. Goats are browsers and really prefer leaves, weeds and so on, to straight grass. Where as sheep would have no problem eating your lawn all day. Living as far south as I assume( having starfruit) you do, I would just build a night shelter for the chickens with a screen bottom to let droppings, drop out. Then fence my yard, or a small one for them. As for chickens with the Gpigs, no I would not. Not to offend but because of the nature of rodents, I would not house them together.
I have guinea pigs and rabbits loose on the floor of our 'barn' with six chickens and 7 coturnix quail. I have a deep layer of pine shavings. Keep in mind that this 'barn' houses our parrots. They're in large flight cages, most about 3 feet by 4 feet suspended 3-4 feet off the floor. The building has a plywood floor. Before the chickens moved in, we had the rabbit and guinea pigs in cages sitting on the floor. I spent 10-12 hours each week scraping, sweeping and mopping the floor and cleaning the gpig and rabbit cages. Now with the hens, everyone is loose on the floor together. The parrot poo just gets composted along with everything else. The hens eat all the parrot food that falls to the floor. The ones on the floor share two waterers. There's several 'creep' areas that the chickens can't get to and that's where I put the gpig pellets. Saves me so much time, alot of money in cleaners and I get at least 4 eggs every day. I'm much happier now as well.
Daybird, do you have a cement floor? I undersand that GP's love to burrow if given a chance. Our GP got along fine with the parakeet, but that was a whole different situation. GP droppings make FANTASTIC garden enricher, so treasure each and every little pellet.
I wouldn't keep really young guinea pigs with grown hens for fear of them being eaten, but adult guinea pigs may not be a problem. I once kept a dwarf lop eared rabbit in my hen yard. It belonged to my sister and in the inexplicable way these things work I eventually ended up with the thing! The rabbit and the hens ate out of the same feeder. I compared the nutritional panel and the ingredients listings of the rabbit feed she was using and the layer pellets I was using and determined there was not a major difference between the two other than the calcium which did not seem to bother the rabbit. Somewhere around here I have a picture of the rabbit eating out of the tube feeder right along side the hens. One problem that you'd probably have like I did is that by nature both animals are burrowers and if set on the bare ground will soon do just that. Her rabbit dug some incredible burrows and soon proved to be quite the escape artist. Eventually had to trench the entire fence line of the hen yard and bury wire to keep it in. After that we had no more escapes. .....Alan.
They're on a plywood floor covered in about 12 inches of pine shavings. They all eat alot of Purina's Mazuri Parrot Breeder pellets because the parrots are extremelly wasteful.
