MASSIVE Invasion of the Guinea Fowl!! – by Brian Whiddon, Managing Editor

ALERT! THIS SATURDAY IS THE FALL, 2026 24-HOUR SHORT STORY CONTEST! Only 500 participants permitted so SIGN UPTODAY if you want to play! The Fall contest is our most popular every year!

So there I was, pulling into the driveway on Tuesday afternoon.

I’d just gotten back from a few hours long trip to Cloudland Canyon State Park where I was doing some hiking and checking out some of the primitive campsites. The temps are dropping, and it’s getting to be perfect camping weather!

Well, I’d forgotten to take the trash out to the street last Wednesday, so I figured I’d go ahead and drag those cans up from the garage to the street RIGHT THEN to avoid another SNAFU this week.

When I got down to the garage area, I was stopped in my tracks by a sound in the woods I’d never heard before. It seemed like a combination of the flocks of green parrots I used to encounter back in West Palm Beach when I lived there, and a very loud, squeaky swing set. The woods I mentioned are right next to my chicken coop, so my first thought was, “Oh no! Something’s tearing the chickens apart so bad that they’re making that horrifying bird-scream!”

So, I raced over to the chicken enclosure, expecting to have to fight off a fox, or a dog, or worse – a bobcat. WHO KNEW?? But as I got closer to the fence, I could see white and gray birds inside the fence line. Way more birds than I have chickens! I recognized right away those weren’t chickens. They were Guinea Fowl!

We have several flocks of these birds on the mountain. About every other week, I have to slow down for a bunch of them crossing the road in one place or another. But the ones I’ve seen always have a black and white speckled design. I’ve never seen ones that were all white or all grey. But here they were!

They had invaded my bird enclosure while I’d left my chickens out to free-range that day. Then I had to figure out how to get them out of there. A bunch were in the wood-line, screeching and squawking. I guess the flock doesn’t like to separate. If one half is stuck somewhere, the other half hangs around.

I went to get Angela, figuring she wouldn’t want to miss this. But here’s the punchline: She had already heard them and SEEN them (with her glasses off), and simply figured that she had somehow forgotten how many chickens we had, AND had forgotten that we don’t own any WHITE CHICKENS!!

There had to be twice that number of birds running around the enclosure. They had wandered in there for free food in the feeder, and were too dumb to find their way back out the door, which was still open, by the way!

Anyway, Angela grabbed her phone to take videos (her idea of “helping”).

I was able to shoo the birds out by chasing them around the edges of the enclosure. Each time they passed the gate, a few figured out it was an opening and went through. It took a few laps to get them all out. Some managed to fly over the fence. A few ran full-speed, smack into the corners of the fence.

Panicking birds are about the dumbest animals on earth. Funny thing is, once the last one was free and ran into the woods, the whole flock moved off and was gone in a minute. Then, our chickens all started coming out from under a big shrub they were hiding under the whole time.

The offending flock was back again today, scouring our back yard for bugs. I had our chickens closed up, so they couldn’t infiltrate the enclosure again.

💬 Leave a Comment

RELATED

Brian Whiddon is the Managing Editor of WritersWeekly.com and the Operations Manager at BookLocker.com. An Army vet and former police officer, Brian is the author of Blue Lives Matter: The Heart behind the Badge. He's an avid sailor, having lived and worked aboard his 36-foot sailboat, the “Floggin’ Molly” for 9 years after finding her abandoned in a boat yard and re-building her himself. Now, in northern Georgia, when not working on WritersWeekly and BookLocker, he divides his off-time between hiking, hunting, and farming.

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?

Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!

Read More News From The Home Office