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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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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:31 |
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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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willus posted:how are the keets
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Apr 15, 2016 10:08
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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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they're about a month old
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May 4, 2016 00:20
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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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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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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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 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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The Narrator posted:keets just don't want to live, huh.
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May 6, 2016 11:42
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the keets survived they're now back to their usual sparkly-eyed fool selves
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May 7, 2016 00:26
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the keets went marching bravely out into the field yesterday and only four came back  i'm shattered. at least i've still got four i guess
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May 7, 2016 23:28
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i don't think there are any trees low enough for them at their current flying skill - the land around here is very heavily cleared and i've sussed out every shrub with a branch less than two metres from the ground i'm hoping they've found some vegetation to nest in too, we don't slash the paddock often because we don't have any large stock and there's a big population of native quails and finches that like long grass. i've had keets escape and turn up the next morning totally fine before, which i was hoping would happen this time too. they may be waiting for me when i get home from work. fingers crossed. tracking them down by listening for them is always fun, they hold such musical little conversations with each other
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May 8, 2016 02:27
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i've given up on the lost keets. i can't imagine they'd survive two nights out in torrential rain. i just don't understand how something could have got five at once. we have hawks and eagles but they couldn't possibly get more than two at a time, keets run so fast, and the other poultry lose their poo poo if anything like a fox or dog comes onto the property so surely i would have heard it. there are no sad little tufts of feathers like i find when a quail gets taken, either. this is really depressing, especially as the two that my mother saved from drowning were among the group that went missing. at least i still have four left. the next batch will be raised alongside chickens - that's what i did with the first hatching, and those keets always returned back to the chook shed with their little flock at the end of the day sorry to bring the thread down. i'll be buying some more eggs soon and the madness will start again
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May 9, 2016 14:30
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i plan to raise these ones with some chicks (mum wants some more araucanas  ) because that's what i did with the last brood and those keets were good at following their little friends home at the end of the day. all my mature hens are currently trailing little broods of real chickens and i lost my two broodiest in a fox attack two weeks ago so unfortunately i don't know when the next will start sittingi really do apologise for this feelgood thread running into the ditch but that is the farming life and i've learnt many valuable lessons. i will never lose another precious keet. not one! i will have hundreds of guinea fowl
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May 10, 2016 08:43
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  if any of you have a question that can be summed up as "should i get keets" then the answer is yes you should get keets, they're delightful. just a few suggestions: 1) get guinea fowl eggs and incubate them if you can, because then you get newborn keets and they're the cutest, and more importantly because that means they always think of your property as home. whatever container you use as a brooder box you can just put in your coop for a few days once they're off the heat and they'll go back to it at night once you let them out to run around. hypothetically. it works with my keets but some keets are stupider/smarter and will never see the box as their house no matter how long they spend locked in it. also if you raise chicken chicks and keets together, they form a flock and when the chickens naturally come home in the evenings the keets follow them 2) if you get older keets, don't let them roam for at least a week after you bring them home. they do develop a homing instinct eventually but for the first few days they yearn for the wilderness until they figure out where the food comes from. always feed them in the coop at first. 3) i've never had a problem with any chicks eating pine shavings but i'd give the keets a week to figure out what's food and what's not 4) ausrotten, your keets are all going to stay more or less the same colour except for the brown ones with stripy heads - that's the original wild colour and they grow up pearl (black with white spots and blue heads). some of them might get lighter or darker but they won't change dramatically. i'm really interested to see what the little white one with the brown streak looks like! they are a beautiful little cluster 5) don't get keets in winter unless you have a very well-insulated or heated barn, even if they're old enough not to need a brooder. i bought seventeen (!!) recently and the first time it rained they all went out and stood in it like a pack of idiots, i had to do a dramatic rescue and lost five from hypothermia because they were wet in addition to being cold, which is something they don't deal with. luckily my quail shed was set up fairly well already so i was able to seal it off and fill it with straw and the remaining twelve keets are doing fine. they and the quails seem to be getting along well which is pretty cute. i'll be moving them back out soon when they're better able to cope with the cold but just keep it in mind, they can and will kill themselves in any way possible my surviving three from the last brood (two piebalds and a lavender) are doing well and have graduated to the big chook roosts. if you can't see the lavender one, look closely at the stripy hen on the lefthand side:       keets!
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Jun 23, 2016 04:38
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 lol these things are like the ugly duckling in reverse
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Jun 23, 2016 06:44
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Ausrotten posted:unfortunately the entire batch died over the course of three days random brood deaths are the worst. i hope your new ones flourish and fulfill their hideous birthrightFluffy Bunnies posted:Hi one of my keets is a retarded baby with a hosed up leg and no matter how many times I try to splint his gross little twig leg so the tendon will stay right, it just wildly flails around and he runs around fine on it so gently caress it, he'll probably die getting trampled but for now his name is Bendy Straw.
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Jun 24, 2016 00:06
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Ausrotten posted:I've had em about a week and so far they're doing great and making my life miserable by peeping wildly at all hours
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Jun 25, 2016 01:31
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they're so cute they seem to have more melodic voices than my other birds, listening to them trill and burble contentedly to each other is nice. i often go into their shed and just chill with them and the quail
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Jun 25, 2016 07:55
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Lynza posted:Thanks, jerks. Now I need to get keets next year.    i'm honoured to be the keet ambassador Avshalom fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Jun 27, 2016 |
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Jun 27, 2016 06:05
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:Hi one of my keets is a retarded baby with a hosed up leg and no matter how many times I try to splint his gross little twig leg so the tendon will stay right, it just wildly flails around and he runs around fine on it so gently caress it, he'll probably die getting trampled but for now his name is Bendy Straw.
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Jul 5, 2016 10:00
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allow m cdescirbe a kwet.. little bald tea. rear end weird hjair feathers/ gets on the rofo then forgets it can fly. peepi pree! peepy pree!
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Jul 30, 2016 15:30
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NYANK
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Jul 30, 2016 15:30
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adore their selves
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Jul 30, 2016 15:49
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i kiss theim on theiy lips
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Jul 30, 2016 15:56
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 wild keet  you make my heart bleat  you make everything  ?  ???  wild keet
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Aug 3, 2016 04:00
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 looks like these ones are thriving!
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Aug 4, 2016 04:53
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Shadowlz posted:The only thing you need to know about guinea fowl.
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Aug 4, 2016 06:20
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 these are the same beautiful babies that were in the very first post. how did this happen? why is life so cruel? nobody knows, anyway these three fools are currently roosting in a tree because they're pissed off about goats. (it's a very tall tree and it's not the first time they've just randomly decided to roost up there so they should be fine.) as they're technically no longer keets but are now becalmed in a magnificent adulthood i'll let this thread lapse for a while... but probably not for too long because we're coming back into guinea fowl breeding season 
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Aug 9, 2016 12:57
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that's weird! as far as i know if they were going to hurt the keets they'd have done it already so all you should have to worry about is disease - just keep the keets wormed and up to date on their coccio medication and they should be fine, they may grow up thinking that they're turkeys but it's a good way to be. 
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Aug 11, 2016 05:53
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lmao ok just one more thing. guinea fowl hunt in formation, they line up horizontally and parade across the field eating everything in sight. it's the weirdest thing to see slowly approaching you and today they were kind enough to do it in the clear so i could get a good photo it's going to be terrifying when they're all fully grown
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Aug 12, 2016 02:07
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 i wonder what could be inside that weird pointy egg!  the incubator is loaded up and ready to go, see you all in a few weeks 
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Oct 1, 2016 01:37
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WrenP-Complete posted:Your name is back?!
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Oct 1, 2016 01:48
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i have been hampered by a hosed-up incubator but am honoured to announce the arrival of three new keets into the world! these brave warriors aren't quite ready for photos yet as they're under the brooder box bonding with some chickens of similar age and recovering from the ordeal of transforming from a squeaky egg into a real live bird, but hopefully i'll be able to do an update some time today. they're all different colours so that's exciting and it means i can assign names and personalities and grieve for each one as an individual when they inevitably get snatched by a quoll or drown in the pool
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Oct 21, 2016 23:10
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  queepy chees itt i ended up with five keets, which is much better than i was expecting! three are pearl, one piebald and one lavender. now i must keep them alive until adulthood. i also have about a dozen new eggs ready to go into the incubator as soon as i confirm that it's working properly now, so mark my words you haven't heard the end of me      *mwah!* Avshalom fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Oct 24, 2016 |
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Oct 24, 2016 08:19
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the keets' brooder-mates include one older plymouth rock hen chick with a broken foot, she's about twelve weeks old (so close to the size of a grown bantam chicken as adult plyms are huge) and docile as anything so the keets and younger chicks think she's their mother. they tuck themselves under her wings and snuggle up under her breast and she just accepts it. when she eats they all flock around and beg. it's super cute! the first time i saw her with her wing all out of place i thought she had an injury, but then she shifted position slightly and this tiny striped blue head popped out of her armpit to peer at me
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Oct 25, 2016 21:40
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WrenP-Complete posted:KEET KEET KEET
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Oct 26, 2016 03:13
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:31 |
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gah i lost another keet. i am now down to three. warning to anyone contemplating guinea fowl, they're unreasonably cute and the adults are super strong but the keets are suicidal cotton balls and they die if you stare at them too hard. this has been a particularly frail brood because of the wildly fluctuating incubator temperature which i think causes birth defects - hopefully the next lot will be more robust quail are even worse, they're basically born dead and have to be kept animate through dark magic Avshalom fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Oct 26, 2016 |
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Oct 26, 2016 21:16
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