The End of the Guinea Mobile


The Guinea Mobile in its day of glory

You may remember back in the summer when we first rolled the guinea mobile out to pasture. With 20+ guineas onboard it was quite a ruckus. After our "House Guineas" amazed us with their tick destroying abilities we decided to see if a team of "Field Guineas" could do the same for the rest of the property. The guinea mobile would also provide shade and shelter for the goats. In the latter respect it performed admirably. The goats are always dry when it's raining and cool in the shade when it's hot. When it comes to the whole "guinea housing" aspect, however, it's over.

It all happened in September/October when the guinea mobile was in a paddock near the house. Since we move the goats on a regular basis and the guinea mobile always goes with the goats it was just a matter of time before the goats and their guinea mobile made their way close to the house. In the back of my mind I worried that the respective guinea clans would hear each other and form a pack. I figured if anything the House Guineas would join the Field Guineas since the Field Guineas had a bigger posse. Then we'd be out of luck for tick control around the house... and that would be a disaster come spring.

In reality, it happened the other way around.

Read More

Shade and Water for Rotational Grazing

One of our blogger friends/fellow aspiring farmer left some great questions in a comment on our Of Guineas and Guard Dogs post. You can see the questions in the comment section, but here's the gist of it:

I was kind of astounded by the idea of using a poultry tractor for shade for larger grazing animals. One issue we've had with the fence is that since it's SO hot and humid here and since the majority of our pasture is just that- pasture- with no trees, the sheep get very overheated if we leave them in all day. We've taken to letting them sleep in there if it's not going to storm and graze until about noon. Then we bring them in the barnyard for a siesta. Later on we put them back out.

How tall is your tractor (note: tractor is short for chicken tractor, or guinea mobile in this instance)?Do you think one needs to be a minimal height to provide shade?

Also, do you have any creative ideas for transporting water to the far parts of the pasture? Right now we're still experimenting with how much they'll eat in how little time, so we've kept them close to the house. But in the future they won't be within reasonable walking distance to carry gallons and gallons of water by hand.

Shade for the Goats on Pasture

Firstly, I think that bringing the animals in and out of the barn if you don't have an option for shade is a great idea. The animals need shade. There's A LOT of farmers around here that disagree and do not always provide shade for the animals. I don't fall in that camp. 


Guineas enjoying the new veranda

Read More