Interactive lesson

Guinea fowl against ticks, step by step

Interactive lesson: what guinea fowl really do against ticks — ticks where you live, a yard ticks don't like, the flock and its paths, the vegetable garden, skin checks and counting ticks.

Free sample Chapters 1 and 2 (8 steps) are free. The full lesson comes with the Guinea fowl for tick and pest control module. Already bought? Unlock

This lesson is general guidance, not professional training. Local regulations and expert advice always take precedence. Read our disclaimer.

The whole lesson as text

1. What guinea fowl really do

A guinea fowl guards the yard; it doesn't replace a tick check.

A flock in a line — Guinea fowl walk as a flock, in a line, and peck from the surface of the grass at anything they see. They don't scratch like hens. A flock has at least 6 birds.
How many you need — Roughly 8–12 guinea fowl per 1,000 m² (¼ acre) of yard and meadow they patrol.
Ticks and grasshoppers — They eat the adult ticks they see on grass and plants, but fewer of the tiny nymphs in leaf litter. Grasshoppers are the main part of their summer food.
An alarm, not a shield — They don't eat adult snakes; they raise the alarm and surround the snake. It's a sign a snake is close, not protection.

Why: Guinea fowl really do eat ticks, grasshoppers, beetles and other insects, and they raise the alarm when a fox, a hawk or a snake comes by. But they clear the grass around the house, not the woods, the long grass or your skin.

You don't see the difference in the first week but in the second and third season, once the flock has learned its paths.
In summer give them little grain, 30–50 g per bird in the evening: a hungry guinea fowl hunts more ticks and insects.

2. Ticks where you live

In the UK and Ireland the commonest tick is the sheep tick, Ixodes ricinus; in eastern North America it's the blacklegged or deer tick.

Where it lives — In damp grass, leaf litter, bracken, scrub and at the woodland edge. It doesn't drop from trees.
Waiting on the grass — It climbs to the tips of the grass and waits for a person, dog, deer or mouse to brush past.
A nymph like a poppy seed — A nymph is 1–1.5 mm, like a poppy seed, and lives in leaf litter and low grass. An adult female is 3–4 mm and easy to see.
When it's active — When it's warmer than roughly 5–7 °C (41–45 °F): most from April to June and from September to October, and in mild winters even in January.

Why: Ticks carry Lyme disease, and in some places other infections too. The nymph most often passes on Lyme disease because it is small and easily missed.

The first sign of Lyme disease is often a red ring or patch around the bite that spreads, from a few days to a month after the bite.
Which tick-borne diseases occur depends on where you live: ask your doctor, the NHS, HSE (Ireland) or your state health department, and ask what vaccines are available.