The Cottage Smallholder


stumbling self sufficiency in a small space

Update on Marco and Gep. Our two male guinea fowl that were adopted by The Chicken Lady

3 guinea fowl girlfriendsMarco and Gep had settled really well chez The Chicken Lady at the other end of the village.
“They spend their time preening and gazing at each other,” she explained.
“Preparing for the arrival of the girl friends,” chipped in her husband.

A couple of weeks ago I was introduced to their girlfriends. They had a pit stop on their nuptial journey to meet their new husbands. Three pretty pearl grey guinea hens were in a sturdy wooden crate in the boot of TCL’s car. Pearl grey actually looks like darkest grey with white flecks. I examined the birds in the crate. Calm and serene.

Somehow they reminded me of nuns. Perhaps it was their colour or the helmets and wattles that echoed the nun’s starched wimples. I attended a convent school as a child. Aged eight, I toyed with the idea of becoming a nun. The pre dawn Matins and the idea of coping with the scratchy wimples put me off.

A week later, The Chicken Lady and husband S arrived for the first Cottage Smallholder Bacon Smoking event. The conversation naturally turned to Marco and Gep.
“The girls are really keen to get acquainted but the boys keep on chasing them away. They’re really aggressive, those young lads.”
“So we’ve separated them in adjoining runs.”
“They can look but they can’t touch.”
“Ah,” said Danny “Glad to hear that you’re employing a Masters and Johnson technique.”

The next day I went up to deliver their streaky bacon.
“You must see Marco and Gep while you’re here.”
We walked through the pretty garden to the chicken house.

The boys had changed since I last saw them being carried through the cottage kitchen. Their wattles and helmets had grown. Happy to live with hens but not so certain about their new girlfriends. Marco stood in the male guinea fowl run looking out at us. An arrogant wattle-rattling male. Meanwhile Gep couldn’t resist examining the girls through the wire.

This harem are clearly a gang of pretty racy girls. Desperate to break their purda, climbing over each other to communicate with Gep.

Nuns? No way.


  Leave a reply

3 Comments

  1. Fiona Nevile

    Hi Scot at Realepicurean

    Guinea fowl are very tasty. Couldn’t eat mine though!

    Hi Magic Cochin

    You’d love guinea fowl. They would enjoy helping you control your slugs and snails. The one drawback is that they do make a bit of a racket.

    Yes Thunder and cloud co habit happily with Carol and the bantams and roost in the hen house at night.

  2. magic cochin

    Almost tempted to get Guinea Fowl – your posts have made them sound so interesting. And their feathers are so pretty!

    Do yours still co-habit with your hens and bantams?

    Celia

  3. Scott at Realepicurean

    An entirely off topic comment – sort of – but you’ve just reminded me that my local butcher had guinea fowl in the fridge today…Yummy!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags are not allowed.

2,261,836 Spambots Blocked by Simple Comments


Copyright © 2006-2024 Cottage Smallholder      Our Privacy Policy      Advertise on Cottage Smallholder


Skip to toolbar
HG