Clipping Guinea Fowl's Wings?

ash1 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:25 pm **Posts:** 94

We have ten x guinea fowl, around 3-4 months old.
As recommended, we have kept them penned up for the last couple of months (since getting them) so they "bond" to the property.

They are penned up in a good-size temporary enclosure within our very large chookie pen (at least half an acre in size). We are planning to release them in the next couple of weeks, but have a problem. We have four young dogs, three of which are not good with poultry. They have already almost plucked to death one of our turkey girls, who happened to have a wander over the fence one morning. Fortunately she had no injuries apart from quite a few missing feathers.

It is extremely rare for any of the birds to fly up over the fence, never the chooks, only the turkeys and it has only happened once before (but not since the "plucking").

So if possible, I'd like to try and train the guinea fowl to stay within the chookie pen - would clipping their wings ground them to stay within in the pen, or is this just cruel and stress them out to much not being able to fly? The guinea fowl are fast, so I reckon nine times out of ten they'd be able to dodge the dogs if I didn't clip their wings, but I do worry about a) one getting cornered and killed and b) them feeling too threatened by the dogs and leaving the property.

I don't want to keep them penned up forever, but at the same time I am worried about how to manage the guineas and the dogs.

CinnGuinea · **Posted:** Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:19 am

In your case I would clip their wings for their own safety. Normally I would say never clip the wing because a predator can catch them but as your are not leave the pen they should be ok

ash1 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:25 pm **Posts:** 94

Thanks CinnGuinea, your advice is greatly appreciated.

Would we clip just one wing, or two to be sure? Are they going to be distressed if they can't get high enough to roost, or would they be happy to sleep in a house? Currently they have a couple of 5' perches in their temp. cage and they sleep on those every night, but if I am going to clip their wings to keep them from getting over the fence, then they won't be able to reach the perches. I can delay releasing them and put a house into their cage to get them used to that, if you think they could/can be trained to roost inside a house at night like chookies.

MickM · **Posted:** Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:45 am

Just clip 1 wing so it unbalances them if you do both it will balance them again and they will fly a little

ash1 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:25 pm **Posts:** 94

Thanks, Mick, appreciate the advice!

AllPoultry · **Joined:** Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:54 pm **Posts:** 1

I clipped mine when they first arrived because the coop had no roof and I just did the left wing and they stayed in the coop for about 10-12 weeks then they could fly enough to make it to the top of the wire but they mostly just sat up there then jumped back down into the coop again if they did go on the other side they immediately wanted to get back into the coop and would run up and down for hours until they flew back over

MickM · **Posted:** Wed Oct 31, 2012 3:12 pm

Yes just the one wing :-D

ozguineafowl · **Posted:** Fri Nov 02, 2012 10:14 pm

Rather than clip can you tap the wing so then you do not have to catch them every 2 or 3 months to clip again :?:

88Fowl · **Joined:** Sat Nov 03, 2012 1:42 pm **Posts:** 1

I did this once and never again cost me 3 guinea fowl and a happy fox. Its better they can fly no matter what or they really are sitting ducks as they saying goes

ash1 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:25 pm **Posts:** 94

88Fowl, after really having a good think about this (haven't clipped wings yet), I think I may leave them unclipped after all.

Yes, they more than likely will fly over the fence, but if they managed to get over the fence with a wing clipped then they wouldn't have a hope in hell of escaping the dogs - safer I think to leave them intact, hopefully they will realise that they don't get harrassed inside the chook run. The other birds have worked it out and, apart from the poor turkey girl (who is recovering well), no-one ever bothers getting out.

They've just started laying though, so think I will delay release until I have a good clutch of eggs to incubate.

Thanks everyone for all the advice, I am going to clip my turkey poults wings though, so it is valuable knowing just to clip the one, in my ignorance, I would have thought that clipping both would have been more effective than one, so glad I asked. than657

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