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Feb 27, 2017 23:35
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 20:37 |
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 pensive teen keet considers whether keets raised by a chicken in the chicken culture are chickens or guinea fowl
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Feb 27, 2017 23:40
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breaking news hot off the presses three keets have popped their shells! so far we have two lavender and a piebald. the blue hen you can see lurking in this photo is petra, she and zebby incubated the clutch together and now they'll either divide the keets up between them or raise them all together. i've only had this happen once before and the two hens involved were like a married couple so they were very co-operative, but petra and zebby don't seem to be quite as devoted to each other so it remains to be seen how they'll handle the situation. as of five minutes ago zebby is back on the unhatched eggs (she moved herself off them presumably to let the keets out) and petra is on the three keets, which i love because two of them are exactly the same colour as her  keets are the best you guys
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Feb 28, 2017 10:15
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keets!!!!
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Feb 28, 2017 15:36
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:keets!!!!
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Feb 28, 2017 15:37
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     keet count: 14 (!) they're about 50/50 lavender and pearl, some with a bit of white. all are healthy and doing well, some are eating already. petra apparently hustled a keet that belonged to zebby because a bit of pecking went on but overall it has been a peaceful occasion. i am excited and terrified to hear what my farm sounds like in a few months when there are 20+ guinea fowl hollering at once but i have nobody to blame but myself
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Feb 28, 2017 22:58
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Welcome to the world tiny bebbe keets!!! 
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Feb 28, 2017 23:30
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quote:i am excited and terrified to hear what my farm sounds like in a few months when there are 20+ guinea fowl hollering at once but i have nobody to blame but myself  of seeing baby keets, so it's all worth it. Probably.
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Feb 28, 2017 23:33
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I love my small stripey sons
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Mar 1, 2017 03:15
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beep beep i'm a keet
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Mar 1, 2017 04:50
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these silky little birds i just
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Mar 1, 2017 14:18
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  good morning! one keet peacefully passed away from natural causes (this is normal, you usually lose at least one or two early on in a big brood) and now i can only count twelve, but there aren't any others dead so i think i just miscounted at first. end tally is seven pearl and five lavender. i've been looking at getting more lavenders in the flock so i'm happy as a clam. the mothers and babies have bonded and all is well! 
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Mar 1, 2017 23:23
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 my life lol
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Mar 2, 2017 01:10
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Avshalom posted:
You look a little shorter than I expected
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Mar 2, 2017 04:46
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I wanna pet a keet 
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Mar 2, 2017 15:21
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i have the worst sort of mystery on my hands: a murder mystery. keets have been disappearing at a slow but steady rate. the brood is down to ten. here is the case i am presented with - every few hours a keet disappears. it leaves no trace - no corpse, no blood, no feathers. - the disappearances happen both in the daytime and in the darkest night, which rules out reptiles and birds of prey - there is never a kerfuffle, the hen shed is like two metres from my window so i would hear it. so that rules out large predators - the keets have two mothers so should be well protected from rat attacks etc. what is going on? my current theory is that it's a rival hen committing keetocide, but it's a shaky theory because none of my other hens have young broods at the moment and it's not something that's ever happened before. another possibility is rats sneaking under petra and zebby to steal the keets one at a time, which is also pretty ridiculous but rats cannot be trusted ever. i am also considering some sort of interdimensional portal. anyway i'll investigate as best i can and keep you all updated on developments in the case
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Mar 2, 2017 23:15
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Avshalom posted:i have the worst sort of mystery on my hands: a murder mystery. keets have been disappearing at a slow but steady rate. the brood is down to ten. here is the case i am presented with portal to the Rat Realm
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Mar 2, 2017 23:34
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i have confiscated my two remaining lavenders and a pearl and put them in the brooder box to be raised with my wyandotte chicks, leaving zebby and petra with seven babies, so if i don't solve the mystery at least i'll have some guinea fowl survive to maturity. currently the imprisoned keets are screaming their heads off and i'm hoping they'll settle down soon and won't just drop dead of shock. keets!  e: on second thought i relocated both mums and all ten remaining keets to my back-up coop, which i was using as a storage shed. that's where zebby raised her last brood and they all survived so i'm guessing it's not infested with anything! the whole group is reunited and happily pecking and scratching in their own personal nursery Avshalom fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Mar 3, 2017 |
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Mar 3, 2017 00:11
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Avshalom posted:i have the worst sort of mystery on my hands: a murder mystery. keets have been disappearing at a slow but steady rate. the brood is down to ten. here is the case i am presented with UFOs, obviously
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Mar 3, 2017 06:28
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Obvs one of the hen mums is half snake and at night just unhinges her jaw and swallows a random keet whole
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Mar 3, 2017 06:53
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CROWS EVERYWHERE posted:Obvs one of the hen mums is half snake and at night just unhinges her jaw and swallows a random keet whole The snake is hiding in her butt.
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Mar 3, 2017 23:23
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 Blue Footed Booby posted:The snake is hiding in her butt. anyway! there have been no further disappearances after the relocation and in fact the brood is back up to eleven keets (i had a few more guinea eggs in the incubator so an adoption happened.) all is well. the keets are bright-eyed and scooting around like hot fools on their fat orange legs, eating and drinking and making GBS threads everywhere! there'll be photos later today, it's almost raining atm and my camera takes weird washed-out horror movie shots when it's overcast so i'll wait for sun. Avshalom fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Mar 3, 2017 |
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Mar 3, 2017 23:34
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:keets!!!!
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Mar 3, 2017 23:44
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a chee has been hatched with curled toes. its legs slipped down through gaps in the incubator mesh (usually far too small for feet to fit through, its toes are curled into very tight little fists) so it's done who knows what other damage to its legs struggling to get out - likely a dislocated hip. i'm going to address its feet tonight and see how it's going in the morning before i decide whether to try to fix its legs or euthanise it, which is my least favourite thing in the world but is sometimes necessary. curled toes can be caused by any number of things and are fixed with a stylish tape and cardboard brace (sorry about the photo quality) please send hopes and prayers for the keet! apart from the feet issue it's pretty strong, i had a hell of a time getting the sandals on it and there is definitely nothing wrong with its lungs. CHEE CHEE CHEE CHEE CHEE CHEE
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Mar 4, 2017 07:40
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nice shoes, keet
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Mar 4, 2017 11:28
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sadly i had to do the hard thing - the damaged keet developed a big umbilical hernia so i had to accept there was probably something wrong with its whole body, likely not fixable with my resources. another keet hatched this morning and this one's feet are easily twice the size of yesterday's baby's, so that definitely suggests some sort of developmental issue. they are such simple things that i can't condone putting them in pain for any amount of time when the problem's not definitely fixable and guinea fowl are such hyperactive animals that a crippled one likely wouldn't have much quality of life. the keet is in a better place now. anyway here is the newest arrival, who is healthy and active and went from cracking its shell to fully hatched in record time!  life goes on  zebby and petra are doing an excellent job in their new shed. the little slugger they adopted yesterday is keeping up very well with its older siblings and there have been no more disappearances!   
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Mar 5, 2017 03:50
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all is well. after a couple more incubator adoptions, the brood is back up to thirteen keets. sometimes the hens split the brood and one forages in the back of the shed with half the keets and the other forages in the front of the shed with the other half. sometimes one hen takes all the keets and the other one has none. sometimes one hen sits down with ten keets under her and the other one forages with three. i'm sure there's rhyme and reason behind their decisions but hell if i know what they're on about   keets really love to perch on their mum. you'll occasionally see a chix sitting on the hen's back but keets do it habitually - earlier zebby had three on her at once and every time one slipped off another one hopped up to take its place. i'll try to get this phenomenon on camera if i catch them doing it again. a bunch of fools imo
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Mar 7, 2017 04:04
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Cute cuddly fools who chee are the best kind of fools.
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Mar 7, 2017 04:19
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now that the keets can keep up with their mums, zebby and petra herd them away from me whenever i get close. i'm happy with this because they're doing a much better job of raising keets than i ever did! i managed to corner some for photographs though   there are still thirteen of them and they're still absurd. some time in the next few days i'll be opening up the shed so they can go out for their first adventure in the great outdoors, not counting when i relocated them between sheds by carrying them all across the yard in a plastic bucket
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Mar 8, 2017 08:47
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do you have a photo of a bucket full of keets
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Mar 8, 2017 08:54
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quite stretched out posted:do you have a photo of a bucket full of keets My understanding is that poultry does not appreciate multi layered storage solutions.
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Mar 8, 2017 18:18
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quite stretched out posted:do you have a photo of a bucket full of keets
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Mar 9, 2017 01:38
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I understand
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Mar 9, 2017 02:16
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GoldStandardConure posted:beep beep i'm a keet you mean keet keet i'm a keet
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Mar 9, 2017 23:38
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keets!
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Mar 9, 2017 23:41
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My guinea hens are sadly past the state of ultimate cuteness, but they still do good work. Here they are, keeping an eye on the goats, making sure they don't get up to too much trouble:
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Mar 10, 2017 04:06
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wow, they're a long way from home! (technically so are mine but australia is basically guinea in climate and terrain). how do they do with the cold and snow? i've heard the adults are surprisingly good with cold temperatures considering they're desert animals. every farm should have a flock of guard fowls imo. absolutely nothing happens on my property without them telling me about it - hawks, snakes, visitors, branches falling off trees, funny-shaped rock on the ground, the dog, sunshine, rain, i am informed of all occurences. it's good that you have them to watch your goats, it's the only way to be safe
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Mar 10, 2017 09:10
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it's probably not too surprising that they can handle the cold as desert birds, deserts can get pretty cold at night
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Mar 10, 2017 10:21
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I have had approximately zero issues with them not being able to handle the cold (we got them as keets at the beginning of spring so lots of time for them to develop feathers to keep them warm for winter). I've also, driving through rural Maine, seen a couple of other houses that have a small flock of guinea hens.
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Mar 10, 2017 20:36
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o poo poo guess who's out and about!      look out world!
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Mar 12, 2017 01:59
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