Poultry Breeds and Species Sponsored by Brinsea In this episode of MOTHER EARTH NEWS and Friends Kellsey Trimble, of Grit, sat down with Alison Martin from the Livestock Conservancy and Cindy Gibson from the Guinea Fowl International Association to discuss popular poultry breeds and species that you may want to add to your homestead.   […]

It seems that every poultry forum I’ve visited complains that guineas are loud and mean animals! Even the day we purchased our keets, the man standing next to us by the brooder bins commented that guineas were annoying and we would be sorry. I’m glad we didn’t listen to all that, because so far our guinea experience has been nothing but pleasant … and tick destroying!

It’s been a wonderful, fruitful year at Iron Oak Farm. The garden is coming along nicely, I’m picking ripening cucumbers every day and adding them to our refrigerator pickle jar. We also just finished kidding season, one of the most joyous times of the year. Our last pregnant doe gave birth to triplets last night. […]

Zach and I have wanted to raise guineas for quite a few years now. They’re excellent foragers, they help reduce the tick population and they’re just really cool looking birds! Every spring we talk it over and try to decide if we want to place an order with a hatchery, or try to find a […]

“They” say variety is the spice of life. Well then, when it comes to poultry, our farm is very spicy. I must say that I am thoroughly enjoying myself this spring! We have a beautiful assortment of teenage chicks, new chicks, ducks and Narragansett and Bourbon Red turkeys to come. I also have plans for […]

I had 3 guineas: Penny, Marcia, and Kelly. Being game birds, they tend to be very high-strung, even as chicks. Their basic reaction when anyone got within a couple of feet was to run away and if I needed to corral them for any reason, they behaved like I was going to rend them limb from limb. […]

by Nancy Smith – Photograph by Martina Berg Guineas are indigenous to grasslands and woodlands of southern Africa, and large, wild flocks continue to roam with semi-domesticated birds kept by farmers. Guineas are hunted in the wild along with ducks and geese as game birds; a commercial safari-type shoot can set a hunting enthusiast back […]

by Jennifer Sartell Lately I’ve been reading a lot about companion planting. It’s a gardening technique in which different species of vegetables and flowers are planted together and they work as a group to benefit each other. In the Mother Earth News article Companion Planting With Vegetables and Flowers, the author Barbara Pleasant gives an […]

by Nancy Farrell Here at Sasimeadows Farm in northern New York everyone has a job to do to keep things running smoothly, so when I wanted to buy more chickens and some guinea fowl my husband, Jim, wanted to know what were they going to do for us.The hens, of course, had a job producing […]

by Sandi Hopper We only have one turkey on the farm. She’s the last bronze beauty we have left of the original dozen we bought. We raised them for meat, or at least that was the intent. We raised the tiny ET’s in the barn, then graduated them to a chicken wire pen when they […]