The Great Guinea Gaffe : Half a Hundred Acre Wood

I receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post. Please see our full disclosure policy for more details. Thank you for supporting Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood through your purchases.

Built a playground for the boys and a house for the fowl,
Complete with a mirror and some big plastic owls.
Named the three guineas Larry, Curly and Moe
And went to our first blacklight puppet show.

-Excerpt from the Ferrell 2010 Christmas wRap

I received a question from a friend about when we might embark on owning some livestock (instead of just borrowing our neighbors cows and claiming that they’re ours). So, I’ve decided to recount some of our “Funny Farm” experiences to let others know why it’s taking us so long to do more with our barn than use it as a giant doghouse.

Last summer, we had an idea – let’s get guinea keets! It would be the first farm animals here at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood, so we were excited. Plus, they supposedly like to eat ticks, and there’s no doubt they are awfully cute:

Our first batch of guinea keets

The boys spent hours with them. They were comical to watch, and they avoided Levi like the plague.

At one point, 4 of our 6 guinea keets escaped. You should have seen us – Stephen started running around aimlessly wailing at the top of his lungs, David used his best sumo stance to chase them around the yard (and even caught one by himself!), and I kept diving for them and missing. I even eventually chased one into the woods. I wish I had a video of it. Stephen prayed that God would help us catch them “with my eyes open ’cause God hears our prayers even if we don’t close them.” And, lo and behold, the one that got away, after spending all night in the woods without his buddies, was trying desperately to get back into the cage the next morning.

But then….

About two weeks after setting off on this new venture, I told David one morning, “Go check on the guineas.” He came back yelling, “Mom-Mom, Mom-mom, it’s something terrible!” My heart sank as I ran to find a massacre of the guineas, with only one of them left half-alive. Something had pulled them through the chicken wire, probably a raccoon, so we were left with heads and feathers. I tried saving the last one, but it died in my hands the next morning. But, seeing how Gary was gone and I felt totally responsible for the whole thing, I was NOT about to be defeated. I made a new and improved version of a guinea tractor…

complete with hardware cloth and a bee-bee gun…

…and an anti-social dog that is also anti-coyote and anti-raccoon.
Even if she is anti-social, she makes a great guard dog!
(She pretends she wants to be petted and
then “sikes” us out as she turns the other way.
Gary calls her “Muhammed Ali.”)

So, we bought six new guinea keets with our new and improved method of protecting them, but this set was of different sizes. Because of this and my lack of logic, I rolled the cage over the littlest one the next day. So, not only did I have to add another guinea to our guinea graveyard, I also had to console my child through my own tears to let him know that I did not “kill the guinea” on purpose. So, we were down to five, and the day came when it was time to release them from the guinea tractor (aka, a cage, usually with a pair of wheels on one end).

Our second batch of guineas

Naturally, Levi chased them around the yard.

Within two nights, we were down to three. It turns out the three guineas were male. So, my thought was: “I have a husband, three sons, a male cat, and three male guineas.” Our dog Dinah was so intimidated, she stayed in the barn.

A few weeks later, A stray cat decided to show up. Much to the chagrin of the guineas, she would “roost” on the front porch where we wouldn’t let the guineas hang out. In retaliation, they chased her into the woods. If you’ve never seen such a thing, it is FUNNY to watch birds chasing a cat around the yard….


We’ve been looking for a home for her since she arrived, and two litters later she has still not been claimed. Now that she’s been here a year, we are finally going to say she’s ours (but if you need a cat, just let us know).

We were originally planning to get female guineas but decided it wasn’t necessary. They were already in love with themselves…

Because of the comical nature of these little creatures, and the way that the ringleader of the three would constantly peck at and run after the other two, we decided to call the guineas Larry, Curly, and Moe.

Some thoughts I had journaled during this short season of our lives:

The three guineas we have left may have been smart enough to survive predators up to this point, but they’re going to starve to death if they don’t start remembering where their food & water dishes are.

So the dog eats the cat food, the guineas eat the dog food, but I’m having trouble training the cats to eat the guinea food. (Of COURSE the cats are doing their own thing and not going along with the plan here!)

I was trying to talk to Gary on the phone – it was so noisy IN the house with the boys, that I went outside to be able to hear him. But then the guineas followed me around with their “rather loud” barking or whatever you want to call it. Oh, the noise, noise, NOISE!!!! I can’t get away from it no matter where I go now!!! And people wonder why I’d rather email than talk on the phone…

So what made the kids’ Thanksgiving Tree list? This year the kids are thankful for: “our barn,” “for moving here because it’s so cool,” and “the guineas because they are so, so ridiculous.”

David would make us serenade the guineas with Amazing Grace (his goodnight song) as they were going to sleep up in the trees. But then, the guineas suddenly STOPPED roosting in the trees (maybe it was our singing?) and STARTED roosting next to the house on the porch railings. Can you imagine the mess?!? I was thankful that it was not mid-summer because the stench would have been overwhelming. Not only that, but the guineas followed me around EVERYWHERE. Gary said that they thought I was their Mama, but I think they were just hungry. And seeing how I had to always show them where the food bowl was…

So then we had an epiphany and decided to hang a plastic owl off the porch to keep the guineas from roosting there. But when we went out there later that night, the silly birds were cuddled up beside the thing!

So, we had ANOTHER idea. Let’s build a guinea house (which collapsed once while we were building it, but we won’t talk about that).

After many unsuccessful attempts, Gary and I were finally able to get the guineas to stay in the guinea house. (I thought about putting the owl in there to keep them company…)

It actually proved to be quite an effort to get the guineas in there EVERY NIGHT. One evening we celebrated when the guineas got into the guinea house all by themselves. (But that just happened by chance. They didn’t do it again.)