[Shropshirelass]

I'm looking into keeping a few guinea fowl & intend to free range with my hens, ducks & geese. I'm not bothered on noise as we often keep upto 20 geese. But I've heard their easier to keep than Turkeys, which we tried & failed, & their fairly hardy. The other issue I have is people say if you buy adults they'll wander & have a tendancy to lay their eggs anywhere, poults I've been told wont do the wandering part, but is there anyway of stopping them from laying their eggs anywhere? Also are they hard to sex as I've been told different things.

[macgro7]

If you get adults you will have to keep them confined for a certain period of time  (I read two months?), definitely longer than chickens.
Eggs - give them hidden, private, dark nest boxes in which they will feel safe.
Sexing - they look very similar.  Best way to sex them is by their voice - check male and female guine scream on YouTube.

[devonlady]

The males shout "back back back" and the females "go back go back go back"

[Marches Farmer]

The keets are quite vulnerable.  Once they mature they're very hardy (thinking here about the one that got stuck on the barn roof when we were off farm in a blizzard - when we got back we realised he couldn't see where to land as everything was white, so we cleared a runway).  If you buy mature birds the males have a helmet and wattles about 20% bigger than those of the females.  I suggest only one male - they fight furiously in the breeding season, otherwise.  I confined mine for 3 months before letting them out and they returned to roost every night.  Never did solve the lay-wherever-you-happen-to-be conundrum, though.