You might notice your guinea fowl with a tick in its mouth almost every time.
Guinea fowl indeed eat ticks. They eat a lot of other things apart from ticks.
This piece would talk about the things they eat and other things you would like to know about your guinea fowls.
What you should be glad your guinea fowls could do is to help you get rid of ticks.
Come tag along. Let’s learn more about guinea fowl and ticks, shall we?
How do guinea fowls get rid of ticks?
Several researchers have settled and placed guinea fowls into places that were completely infested with ticks.
They noticed that these guinea fowls helped in reducing the population of the ticks.
Guinea fowls will get rid off and eat ticks.
One after the other, and they get rid of as much as possible.
Even though a single adult female tick could lay as much as two thousand eggs, guinea fowls still have the time and energy of the day to get rid of this high number.
Guinea fowls actively search for adult ticks.
These are the ways they get the female adult tick and help in reducing the population of ticks around your farm.
Guinea fowls can settle down and consume more than four thousand ticks in just a day.
Related: Here is an article I wrote on can guinea fowls handle cold weather?
How many other things do guinea fowls like to do?
It is said by a lot of people that guinea fowls like doing different things like the following;
- Guinea fowls enjoy eating ticks.
- Guinea fowls would handle problems related to the presence of rats and snakes.
- Guinea fowls are more straightforward to manage in the yard than other birds like chickens.
- They don’t scratch so much and wouldn’t disturb your garden
Can guinea fowl be used as a natural pest control solution?
Guinea fowls typically eat ticks.
These are usually listed as a definite advantage for keeping guinea fowls in your home.
They aid in reducing the rate and spread of lime disease and other complicated health issues which come from chickens and ticks.
Yes, your guinea fowl can help you handle your tick problem.
If it is persistent and you either buy a guinea fowl or get one from your neighbor, they would all be gone before you know it.
Are ticks dangerous to guinea fowls?
If you notice that ticks are so much around your guinea fowl flock, you need to do something about it immediately.
Here is a list of some health issues you might start noticing if you have too many ticks in the presence of your birds.
- Anemia
These are one of the first signs that these ticks are feeding on your guinea fowl’s blood.
Your guinea fowls would look weaker. They would be slower, the speed of their egg production would get interrupted, their wattles would become pale too.
You need to treat your guinea fowls if you notice anything like this as soon as possible.
- Tick Fever
A pathogen carried by ticks is known as tick fever. It has various parasites which love to feed off chickens.
The symptoms here include things like aches, fever, pains, and weakness.
You should make use of diatomaceous earth.
It is an excellent substance that helps heal your guinea fowl from tick fever.
Diatomaceous earth could be used to save your guinea fowl by using it through the following methods;
- Scattering some of it all across your coop’s bedding or the run to get rid of parasites.
- You could dust it on your guinea fowl to get rid of ticks, fleas, lice, and a lot of other parasites.
- You could use it in their dust bath so it could find a way and enter their feathers.
- It would be best if you used it whenever you think parasites might be hiding.
Can guinea fowls easily catch tick diseases?
It is known that guinea fowls are way more resistant than chickens.
It is difficult for your guinea fowls to catch tick diseases.
During the summer months, guinea fowls seem to hustle for all of their meals by checking around and carrying the ticks from the ground.
Ticks serve as food to guinea fowls.
Your female guinea fowl needs all of the food she can get.
Your female guinea fowl would enjoy consuming ticks as she hatches her eggs.
When the eggs hatch, they would also like to consume ticks too.
Also check out this article I wrote on can peacocks and guinea fowls live together?
Do keets enjoy eating ticks?
Little guinea fowls or keet love to eat ticks too.
This helps them develop and grow to their adult size quickly and faster than when they only consume their feed.
Conclusion
You can make use of your guinea fowls to get rid of ticks.
Guinea fowls are highly effective when it comes to keeping all of the ticks at bay.
This is an affordable method of getting rid of ticks too.
You should know that your guinea fowl needs to be guarded and watched as it consumes all of these ticks because there are diseases it could catch.
To safely keep your guinea fowls that eat ticks, you should feed them very well, give them clean water and enough space in their coop.
They would appreciate this.
