Mike New Guinea

Well, I’ve come to the sad part of my Guinea story.  (You can catch up on the first installments here and here.)  Thelma and Louise were on the loose one day, as usual.  In fact, I had just seen them both in the back yard no more than 5 minutes before when a neighbor came and told me that he had found Thelma in the road.  She had been hit by a car and had died.

We were all very sad about her passing.  As a difficult tribute, we went to the road and gathered up her feathers that were strewn about.  We now have a vase full of her beautiful black and white spotted feathers in our house.

As sad as we were, Louise was beside herself.  Thelma was the ring-leader.  Louise followed her everywhere.  Now she had no one to follow.  She moped about the yard and stayed very close to home.  She roosted alone at night.  It was clear to us that we had to get her a new best friend.  I was unable to locate another female guinea, but some friends found a male and were even able to go pick him up for me.  We named him Papua (New Guinea, get it?)

Just like Thelma and Louise, Papua had a rough transition.  Just in case you wondered, a full-grown Guinea running on the tin barn roof over your head is as loud as a grown man!  He got along with Louise from the start, but he was aggressive towards the chickens.  In fact, I listed him for sale on some of my Facebook poultry groups, but I never found a taker.  For about a week I worried that if I left Eric home without me, I would return to find Papua on the grill!

There is good news though!  It took awhile, but he finally settled in.  The chickens still give both guineas a wide berth, but everyone seems to get along.  Also, since Papua is no longer new, we have changed his name to “Mike” now.  We have decided that all future new Guineas will be called Papua for awhile, because we’re easily amused like that!

Here’s a video of Mike chasing the chickens off so that he and Louise can eat the scratch I just threw out.  Even my top rooster, Randy, clears out when Mike comes around!