well bbarick…..guinea fowl are noisy! not quite as noisy as roosters, and not nearly as peafowl. in my experience they aren't as voracious the insect eaters that chickens are. they are more vegetarian than chickens, generally. what they DO do well is alarm call! anything out of the ordinary will get them going. they screech herons off our front pond…greet visitors by walking in a big semi circle around them screeching. and while guests are inside, the guineas, (who aren't used to shiny hubcaps here on our farm lol) will peck and stare and stay entranced by the shiny vehicle. all-in-all they're very entertaining. about wandering, well, they do that. ours don't stray further than an acre or two from the barnyard, and when they do go out and about, it's usually to keep company a hen of theirs who is laying an egg. it's the hens who wander…. looking for a far away place to lay. oh, and they tend to try to sleep outside in the worst most horrible weather, and roost safely in the barn when it's nice! they are odd. their feathers, when they molt and drop them around everywhere, are gorgeous! i gather them and send them to a friend who does basket work and weaving with them. ours are lavenders.

if your pests are the brown stinkbug from China then i'm afraid you're in for the battle of your lifetime. there seems to be no stopping that horrible insect…… noise tolerance is a must for guineas. that said, you could go ahead and try some and if your neighbors can't handle it …. eat them. they are much tastier than chicken!

lol…..not the neighbors! the guinns

LOL..... the neigbors will thank you for not including them on the menu! Our insect problems are mainly apple coddling moths, grape borers and squash vine borers. and deer ticks of course. We might try a guinea or two instead of a whole flock...they can hang out with the chickens and we'll see what happens.

our guineas and chickens co-mingle well. they sleep separately, but those chickens we have that venture out and about tend to band, loosely, with the guineas. when i feed the wild birds or drive over the driveway (ergo crushing pecans for forage) they're all 'right there!'. we keep an organic farm…. so i'd tend to use soap or natural oils…or mechanical methods (trench) to keep insects at bay. we don't even use insecticide on our cattle or horses. it's kinda a 'thing' for us….

It would be nice to be totally organic here too but nothing I've tried works except commercial insecticides. Its a catch-22...we grow fruit to avoid pesticide but w/o it the fruit crop is mostly lost. Thinking that turning my chickens loose in the orchard and getting guineas might help. Ohio has 2 inch long horseflies as well, so if I don't spray my horse he is miserable when outside. Citrus based sprays help a little, but not much and I don't like to use heavy duty insecticides on him.... so he hides out in the barn alot. Your cattle and sheep are lucky to have such long curly hair to help protect them from bites!