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hey i raise guinea fowl and right now i have nine 48-hour-old keets of various colours that i thought you might like to look at. i didn't want to spam the chook thread especially as guinea fowl technically aren't chickens.  for those who don't know, guinea fowl are a species of ground bird from guinea in africa. they're pretty easy to raise, about as easy as game chicken breeds, and they'll happily form a flock both with each other and with chickens so the two species can be housed together. (as opposed to other game birds like quail and partridges and i think turkeys and peafowl too, which will only bond with each other and can be dangerous to / in danger from chickens if kept in the same enclosure because all birds are fundamentally mindless killer-consumers that will murder anything that bleeds). so far in my experience mature guinea fowl are no more aggressive than mature chickens and are probably actually less so. the only reason they're not as common on small farms is because they make bizarre loud noises like a rusty gate being slammed and because if they're not carefully acclimatised to the henhouse they'll disappear into the wild first chance they get, and also because some people would say they're fugly when they grow up    i don't agree though and the keets are definitely the cutest thing ever to have come out of an egg.     they're as soft as they look  these two will grow up to look exactly the same as those adults up there, with identical colour and markings (called lavender and pearl)   these are the best shots i've managed to get of baby bird eye colour. birds are born with bluish-greenish eyes just like everything else!  when the brown ones get old enough to outrun a goon (so about a week old) and take off into the paddock they're impossible to find. my jack russell tracks them down and then freezes on the spot watching them with hungry eyes until i come and pick them up. he just taught himself to do that, i had no input, but it's been very useful    that's a tiny, tiny wing  this one looks exactly like a young japanese quail. the brown ones with striped heads grow up to be pearl (dark brown or black with white spots) and the ones with white masks become piebald   i tied a tuft of chicken feathers together because chicks in a brooder get upset if they don't have something to snuggle up to. they don't die or anything, they just squeak like crazy for the first few days, especially at night. anyway that's their surrogate mother and i figured out after the escape that they were much happier if i put it on the grass for them to chill out under.  husbandry tip: for the first few days, check the newborns' bums regularly! that bit of dried poo on the brown keet's anal opening could easily clog the rectum and cause a fatal waste build-up if it was allowed to stay there for too long. (i removed it after taking the photo, obviously)      interlude  plotting something   the piebald one escaped under the air conditioning unit straight after i took these photos and it took me about twenty minutes to pester it into an open space and then sweep it out like a bit of dandelion fluff, it was very upset but then it went to sleep in my hands so i think we're good   before making a break for it, it had a nap to gather its strength  the fugitive after recapture. holding them like this looks brutal but i find they calm down a lot quicker if gentle pressure is applied from all sides at once, like most baby animals, and it also pins their wings and legs so they can't hurt themselves  thank you for reading
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Apr 11, 2016 03:51
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good thread imo.
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Apr 11, 2016 04:00
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Thanks for sharing they are absolutely adorable and it brings back memories of the years I lived in Africa as a child. If you don't mind me asking, why do they need a substitute mom to snuggle up to, don't they have the real thing?
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Apr 11, 2016 04:02
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Brick Dust Otis posted:good thread imo.  I had no idea that "keet" as actually a real term. They are so cute
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Apr 11, 2016 04:03
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Fuzz Feets posted:Thanks for sharing they are absolutely adorable and it brings back memories of the years I lived in Africa as a child. If you don't mind me asking, why do they need a substitute mom to snuggle up to, don't they have the real thing?
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Apr 11, 2016 04:09
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Thanks for the thread! They are sooo cute 
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Apr 11, 2016 04:23
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The Narrator posted:
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Apr 11, 2016 04:48
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It's kinda like "puffling". Just one of those animal names that are inherently adorable
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Apr 11, 2016 04:54
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If you could send one my way avs, I'd be much appreciative. e: Maybe some kind of guineafowl - quail swap?
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Apr 11, 2016 05:24
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Yay  these are so cute!
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Apr 11, 2016 05:28
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Oh god.
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Apr 11, 2016 09:28
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How can I pet these keeeeeeeeeeets?
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Apr 11, 2016 10:12
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Good keets I approve. Always wanted some of these just wandering around but my dogs would massacre them in a heartbeat.
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Apr 11, 2016 11:07
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How do they taste? I mean once grown.
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Apr 11, 2016 11:22
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Vladimir Poutine posted:It's kinda like "puffling". Just one of those animal names that are inherently adorable Puffling. Keet. Puggle.
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Apr 11, 2016 11:44
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how are the keets
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Apr 15, 2016 06:55
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willus posted:how are the keets
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Apr 15, 2016 10:08
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I'm still waiting for video with keets' noises.
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Apr 15, 2016 10:14
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my keets
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Apr 30, 2016 06:13
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I think we need some keet updates
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Apr 30, 2016 06:43
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im getting guineas in june, im really excited. they are cool and weird birds and having something that wont die instantly when it touches the ground like turkeys do sounds neatslavatuvs posted:How do they taste? I mean once grown. similar to pheasant. supposedly a lot of restaurant "pheasant" is actually guinea
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Apr 30, 2016 07:40
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I thought this thread was gonna be about parakeets but it turned out way cuter than I expected
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Apr 30, 2016 12:42
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Radio! posted:I thought this thread was gonna be about parakeets but it turned out way cuter than I expected I thought this thread was going to be about Akitas. Wrong keets. I approve alternate keets. 
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May 2, 2016 16:09
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Guinea hens are amazing! I miss our ladies so, so much. MORE PICTURES, PLEASE.
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May 2, 2016 19:32
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sorry, forgot to check the thread for a few days! anyway the keets went through their ugly feathering stage and now have quite a bit of their adult plumage. they are getting into the gangly teens. yesterday they were allowed to forage for the first time and spent all day running around the paddock whistling at each other. they're starting to develop the hunched guinea fowl shape, they remind me a bit of old widows. as they get older they start to chill out a bit, which is good because i can't catch them and instead have to herd them toward wherever i want them to go; younger keets just scatter in a panic but my flock sort of jostle calmly along and can be directed. the important thing is that they're still completely ridiculous and will remain so for the rest of their lives  you can see a bit of the pearling starting to develop on this one. it leaves the tiniest, most delicate little spotted feathers lying around, they're delightful   the crew spend the mornings sunbathing around the verandah and then as the day gets warmer they migrate out to the field   i have an extremely intense little dog
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May 4, 2016 00:09
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How old are the once-baby keets now?
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May 4, 2016 00:17
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they're about a month old
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May 4, 2016 00:20
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And how long till they become those unnerving behemoths in this picture? Do you, like, eat these things?
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May 4, 2016 00:27
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the grown guineas are about... four months old i think? they'll look like that in miniature in another six weeks or so. the head is always the last part to lose the downy baby feathers so they'll remain fluffy-faced darlings right up until suddenly all their head fluff falls out and they turn into alien vultures i don't eat them yet but apparently they're delicious! i'm going to see what their eggs taste like (guinea fowl eggs are about 2/3 the size of a chicken egg and they're mostly yolk with very little white, similar to quail eggs) and until then i'm using them mostly as organic pest control. they scratch less than chickens do, preferring to dig with their excellent beaks, and are mostly insectivorous (compared to chickens which eat everything) so they do comparably very little damage to plants and soil. our orchard gets decimated by fruit fly every year and most of the insecticides available are harmful to delicate australian finches so i'm eager to explore alternatives, and if they turn out to be as good at eating grubs as i've been told i can start selling them to farms and wineries around the area when i started raising birds i was gung ho about eating them but it's turned out to be a bit of a stumbling block for me. i'm fine with killing and prepping them but when it comes to actually eating their flesh i get kind of fluttery
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May 4, 2016 00:34
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Avshalom posted:when i started raising birds i was gung ho about eating them but it's turned out to be a bit of a stumbling block for me. i'm fine with killing and prepping them but when it comes to actually eating their flesh i get kind of fluttery When I was on my grandma's farm in jamaica I was so loving ready to eat the chickens after a while just because of how mean those assholes were. How do guineas compare in sheer shitiness?
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May 4, 2016 01:31
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all my chickens and guineas are sweet perfect angels!
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May 4, 2016 01:58
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   keets   keet meet  keets  keets  mighty eagle
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May 4, 2016 04:29
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ugh theyre so fuckin cute
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May 4, 2016 05:23
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My uncle used to keep guinea fowl and they were cool until they all decided to make that god awful shrill holler they make at all hours all of the time. I like that I can look at the cuteness of yours without having to deal with associated bird yelling.
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May 4, 2016 13:54
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Good birds good thread good job.
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May 5, 2016 13:19
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avshalom does a good job of whatever she sets her mind to this can be to her detriment at times
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May 5, 2016 13:51
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Tamarillo posted:My uncle used to keep guinea fowl and they were cool until they all decided to make that god awful shrill holler they make at all hours all of the time.
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May 5, 2016 18:48
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Ausrotten posted:ugh theyre so fuckin cute keets more like cutes 
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May 5, 2016 18:52
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 two keets went for a swim if you're wondering, no, keets can't swim. luckily my mother happened to come along as they were swimming in circles like rubbish ducks and she fished them out with a net. both were drenched and hysterical. i got into bed with them under my shirt until they'd dried out and stopped shivering, and now they're both asleep on my lap wrapped in a towel. disaster has hopefully been averted - they recovered quickly enough that i don't think they gulped down too much chlorinated pool water, and i'll keep them with me tonight and put them back with their family tomorrow shabbat shalom everyone e: haha i even had a photo of the culprits it was these two idiots, the pearl and the masked bandit
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May 6, 2016 09:29
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[keeting intensifies]
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May 6, 2016 10:06
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