It's not a chicken, pheasant or turkey?????????

[ricqik]

A few weeks ago while bear hunting I saw a group of 20 or so strange looking birds. About 5-6 were adults and the rest was a little smaller. The adults were gray with small black dots all over the body with a light colored bald head I think and has a round crest like waddle of a chicken on top of it's head and a short if at all no tail like a quail. The adults are kind of in between the size of a pheasant and turkey. They are ground birds like pheasant and turkeys too but I think they can fly, I'm not sure because I was in my stand and watch as they work their way by, scratching and kicking leaves looking for food. I don't think they are native birds. They look almost exotic like from the amazon jungle or something. What is it and is it native?

[gspman]

guinea fowl

[MIKE IN lINO III]

Are they fair game???

I've seen these in the Hugo area.

[brittman]

If you own them!

[gspman]

They are not native and there is no hunting season on them.

[FOOT]

Ricqik, yes they were guinea fowl. My brother has a neighbor that raises them and he has a devil of a time keeping them in a pen. They make a high pitched scream like no other bird you'll hear. Good watch dogs.

I wouldn't shoot them unless you want to upset the owner.

[ricqik]

So they wonder around wild in the woods and field edges miles from who ever had them? Do they return back to the owners land or something? Would they survive the winter? It was a pretty intersting siting though.

[Dotch]

Yep, sure sounds like guineas to me. We raised them on the farm growing up or I should say they pretty well raised themselves, scavenging grain, eating bugs and following the cattle around, picking at the cowpies. They are native to Africa but have adapted to our MN climate rather well. They could fly if they wanted to well over a quarter of a mile and did so once in awhile to the neighbors. They needed to be inside when it got real cold out though as their feet tended to get frozen where they roosted and they'd sometimes lose toes. Trying to catch them at night took some doing. What you may have witnessed were some broods that somehow managed to hatch out relatively undisturbed and were lucky enough not to have been dragged through the wet grass by the guinea hen when small. Their luck will run out eventually. Out in the wild as you describe, chances are they will make a nice meal for a fox, coyote, owl, hawk, etc., until they're gone.

[LuciandTim]

Anyone have a picture?

[Dotch]

Have no pics personally because the guineas we had on the farm are long since gone but check out this HSOforum for some pretty typical guinea pics:

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/Guineas/BRKGuineas.html

More than you want to know about guinea fowl...

[LuciandTim]

Ok...That makes sense now!!! I took a picture of these birds. I saw a large group in a ditch up by Mille Lacs this summer. Everyone I showed the pic or at least the majority said they were baby Turkeys!!! I knew they weren't baby turkeys!

[ricqik]

Wow, they come in colors like chickens.

[Dano2]

AWOL army helmets, heh, heh.

[Dotch]

Yeah, in addition to raising chickens, geese, bobwhites, chukars, pheasants and wild mallards to release, we had several pearl and lavender guineas. Brother and I spent hours as kids chasing them around the yard, whipping dirt clods or rocks at 'em to fire 'em up so they'd make that ungodly squawking. Our parents were not amused especially when we were supposed to be doing chores, baling hay, cleaning barn or some other equally entertaining task...