Devonviolet Acres

[Nyboy]

When the drugs and booze wore off after finding a snake in my kitchen. I called in a exterminator, I told him make my house glow use your most toxic gas. He said problem was yard was filled with their favorite food grasshoppers. Till I got rid of the grasshopper I will always have snakes. Ps you can not buy a mongoose in NY.

 

[Smart Red]

Chickens! Chickens eat grasshoppers. No grasshoppers, no snakes. Any snake who's favorite food is grasshopper rather than slightly drugged and boozy homeowner is A-ok in my book.

 

[Nyboy]

Red weekend house I get chickens I would be arrested for animal abandonment . Willn't look good for business

 

[Smart Red]

Guinea fowl then. They rather take care of themselves and prefer roosting in the trees over inside a coop. You've got the stream for water. All you need is someone to toss a scoop of pellets out every day or so and the problem is solved.

 

[Nyboy]

They are on my list of one day when I retire

 

[Smart Red]

So, you don't like your neighbors either?

B-I-L says his father preferred Guinea hen eggs to chicken, duck, or turkey eggs and always kept a dozen or so on their ranch.

 

[Nyboy]

Guinea is often past off as pheasant in some restaurants. If cooked right is very good.

 

[Smart Red]

Huh! Guinea is more compact and meatier than pheasant. If cooked whole as we usually have it around here, I would think it easy to tell the difference. All the pheasant I've eaten is long, lean, and skinny.

Perhaps the cage-raised birds are different?

 

[Devonviolet]

We had 3 French Guineas. They were not the smartest birds in the hen house! The chickens ate more bugs than the Guineas. When we got tired of them eating so much feed & making lots of noise (and I don't mean they were good watch birds - 'cause they weren't) we finally butchered them.

We had them for a little more than a year and never got any Guinea eggs. From what I read and frim watching YouTube videos, it seemed (from their squawk) that we had females. Although, when we butchered them, I didn't find any eggs in production.

They had lots of yellow fat (which we rendered for cooking - strong flavor, but good). We knew meat would be tough. And it was! They have all been used for soup - with a long slow simmer in the crock pot). Great game bird flavor! Yummmmy!

Once we had 2 fewer roosters & 3 fewer Guineas, our feed bill went down by half - with 16 remaining laying hens & a turkey hen. I seriously doubt we will be getting any more Guineas!

 

[bobm]

Those pheasants in Wisconsin may be long, lean, and skinny, however the many, many pheasants that I have hunted in Cal. are plump and have a very nice layer of very yellow fat. YUMMMMMM !!!