I've kept guinea fowl for years as tick eaters, and they do a great job at
this.
Guinea fowl have the habit of ranging rather far from home (up to a quarter
of a mile or perhaps more), but they always return to their same roost at
night in the barn or coop. Hence I doubt the guinea fowl you spotted are
feral -- they were just far from their home.
I've never heard of any competition between wild turkeys and guinea fowl. I
would like to think that any extra tick-eaters out there are doing us a
favor.
Marla
Marla L. Coppolino
Groton, New York
http://marlacoppolino.com
http://www.thesnailwrangler.com/
http://kibibiacres.com
On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 11:44 AM, Dimitri William Ponirakis <
dw...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> I spotted a couple of Helmeted Guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) by the side
> of the road this morning. (Sweeney Road, Cortland ) I presume they are
> escaped or feral. I also heard that they are useful in reducing the tick
> population and also that there might be an issue with competition with
> native wild turkeys?
>
> I submitted to e-bird with a photo:
> http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S2831
>
> Cheers
> Dimitri
>
> Ponirakis, Dimitri William
> Senior Noise Analyst / Applications Programmer III
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