This is my only venture into eye candy. These birds are SO pretty. They are also very funny to watch, but less amusing when they sound early morning or late night alarms. They can be extremely loud, but it pays to get up and look. Especially when roosting, they only alarm when they see something... My first guinea was a regular guard dog and would explode at every car that arrived. In theory, these birds make good eating, but I think they will be too small for the effort involved. Their eggs are however, great. The shell is amazingly hard and they have the neatest triangular shape. I found a small Michigan hatchery that sold me 10 multicoloured birds. Only 5 survived, but if they live up to their reputation, they and the older 5 that I also got locally, ought to produce a few batches of babies next year. I hear they are bad mothers, but we will see. The excuse for having them at all , is that they eat ticks and bugs. With this year's drought and heat, we saw ticks for the first time on our dogs...YUCK. So, I hope the guineas helped take care of the issue for me.