 |
| Grazing guinea pigs in the orchard/chook yard out of town. |
Last Friday afternoon we packed up our three remaining boar guinea pigs and took them for a drive in the countryside to a lovely property where the folks there keep guinea pigs and chickens in a netted orchard. I had read of keeping guinea pigs and chickens together before and in this example they really worked well together and did their own thing. With past problems of in-breeding our three lads were welcomed as they would introduce some ‘new blood’ into the population.
It was great to see our males find a new home and it now means our own guinea pigs numbers are finally back to a manageable level again. After the losses of the last few months due to stray cats in the garden and the birth of six new babies we are starting again and I have some new ideas after making this visit out to the farm.
At present our guinea pigs are housed in a large hutch to keep them safe from the cats. Although I have not seen a cat in the yard for some weeks now, our last two free-range guinea pigs suddenly vanished overnight. That was around last Wednesday. Seeing firsthand how the chickens and guinea pigs interacted with each other I am looking at housing our guinea pigs with the chooks. Already I can see the benefits.
- More space to roam again. I really dislike keeping them caged up. I much prefer having them roam on their own and keeping them in the chook yard will give them a bit more freedom once again.
- They will still be in a semi-secure area and have access to convenient shelters from curious chooks, stray cats and whatever else may come their way such as storms or hail.
- When they were free-range before they snuck into the chook yard to nibble on scraps and now they can share the feast freely. This means that we won’t have to discern between what we feed the chooks and the guinea pigs. All the kitchen scraps for them can go in the one spot and they can deal with them at their leisure.
- Being in the one spot – as with the chooks – means that their droppings will be concentrated in the one area and this will make it easier to clean. I actually don’t see it as cleaning anymore because now that I am using the woodchips in the yard I just need to keep it turned over until I use it on the garden – and then it will have chicken and guinea pig manures in it!
- The greatest advantage is that with the six remaining guinea pigs being in the chook yard I can remove the hutch and use the garden space to plant more vegetables. It also means that although they are not free-range in the garden, I can concentrate on planting vegetables wherever I wish and not having to protect certain plants from hungry guinea pigs. Given that I am really playing all out in the garden this year for a big harvest this is going to be very helpful.
I will need to make some slight modifications to the chook yard perimeter to make sure the guinea pigs stay where they are required, but still give the chooks a bit of access to places.
Oh, I must mention too that we have had Jennifer Aniston go clucky again and have been given some fertilised eggs from a friend so I also need to give her a bit of room to have her own space.
Petit Paradis 
Super interesting.
I have been pondering what to do about trimming around fence posts and my trailers equipment in the paddock. I hate doing it and the horses aren’t keeping it down. Goats/sheep are more than I want to deal with and I’m not sure they would do the job properly, even if I did leave enough space for them to get in, around and under some of the objects. Geese I apparently have to trim the grass first (lol). Not sure there are any other options and I don’t want excessive grass eaten, just the edging etc. I am going to build a chicken or goose tractor but I couldn’t help wondering if I could incorporate these little guys as they seem to like eating long grass and if they largely hang near safety, I can probably concentrate their efforts where required. The geese/chickens can come and hit the fresh shoots once the pigs have knocked it down.
I read through all your posts and it was definitely the predator side of it I was curious about. Losing one or two should be fine as long as they can outbreed the predators. Your problem was the cats but I will hopefully be taking care of those with a guardian dog. Getting him to not eat the GPs might be a big ask but let’s just assume I can make that happen, he’s pretty smart. He should also keep the other bigger predators away like foxes, owls etc
That leaves mostly snakes and maybe the odd escaped ferret or similar. I want to give them a fighting chance if anything gets past the dog and if they could get by without the dof 24/7 that would be better still.
I heard they like hay and they will happily burrow in it. What are your thoughts on a bale of hay(or even straw) in a cage, probably with some tin above to minimise water ingress, do you think they would creat a labyrinth that would offer additional safety?. I imagine having a gap at the bottom and installing access holes into the bottom of the cage so they can run under in an emergency and then up into the bale into the tunnels they have created themselves. Alternatively I was thinking of using some ag pipe to kick off 4 or 5 entry points from below, smallest size possible then let them expand the labyrinth through the hay from there.
If I have it adjacent to the chicken coop, probably mounted on the drawbar of the trailer or similar, there could be additional escape holes into the chicken coup or directly to the outside so they don’t get trapped. That would, potentially, allow the predator into the chicken coop. I imagine geese or chickens would stomp a small snake, I’m not sure, nor am I sure what a ferret would do to them but that’s less likely. I could potentially keep the chicken coup unlocked under the dogs supervision so everyone can get out of dodge and the dog can take care of it.
Alternatively, I could just accept that I will lose the odd one to snakes if it gets past the dog. A snake would only eat one I imagine, not like the cat that took out 3 of yours or more or the kind of damage a fox might do. I also don’t really like the idea of the dog dealing with the snake, I’d much rather lose a bird to a veanomous snake than him.
Any thoughts?
LikeLike