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Man, that pearl color is really something else. Just gorgeous. My dad keeps telling us we need keets. So, I guess in the spring we're gonna get some.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:27
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Avshalom posted: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 I would appreciate a video of this
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Oct 24, 2016 22:43
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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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you are denying us pictures we gather round and beg like the baby birds you raise KEET KEET KEET KEET KEET KEET KEET KEET
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Oct 25, 2016 23:28
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last night i fell asleep thinking about how "australorp" sounds like someone tripping over as they say "australia" and then i had a nightmare about the human race being hunted by giant chickens so thanks i guess
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Oct 26, 2016 00:29
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vaguely posted:you are denying us pictures KEET KEET KEET TEEK TEEK TEEK
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Oct 26, 2016 01:56
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WrenP-Complete posted:KEET KEET KEET 
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Oct 26, 2016 03:13
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send vanya in to take the pic, they'll assume he is just a little bird like them
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Oct 26, 2016 13:26
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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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Poor keet But dark magic does explain the taste of quail.
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Oct 27, 2016 16:47
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the remaining trio are doing well  so is their stripy surrogate mum, who's been in treatment for a foot infection that seems to have cleared up now. yesterday i caught her snuggled up in the brooder with a keet under each wing and one perched on her back, it was ludicrous. it was a busy weekend but hopefully i'll get a photo op this afternoon, they're about due for some lawn time
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Oct 30, 2016 21:14
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the keets had their first real adventure today! first i put them on the grass but they got scared and keeted at me until i put them back on the verandah, where they chilled out with their siblings (a silver grey dorking and a maran plymouth cross of the same age)  and their surrogate mother bumblebee    and i can't believe this but i actually got the snuggling on camera   it's hard to handle sometimes
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Oct 31, 2016 08:28
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Avshalom posted:the keets had their first real adventure today! first i put them on the grass but they got scared and keeted at me
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Oct 31, 2016 17:13
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Avshalom posted:and i can't believe this but i actually got the snuggling on camera oh my god 
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Oct 31, 2016 17:49
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keetkeetkeet mafuckahhhh Too cute I love this thread. Do you have any names in mind?
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Nov 11, 2016 08:18
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the keets in this batch have all been sold along with their chick friends (my breeding hen is still laying like a machine and i don't want to get too overrun with adult guineas) and the buyer has told me that they're in a box with some extremely tiny fluffy pekin bantam cross chicks and are having a terrific time. so, no names yet - i usually don't name birds until they're fully grown anyway because when i name them i get attached and the death toll for babies is pretty high, especially keets.  my breeding pair are named paula keeting (the lavender one) and ziggy stardust (the pearl). their inexplicable head phalluses cheer me up whenever i look at them. seriously what are those things even for
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Nov 11, 2016 08:51
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I need some help and advice. One of our guineas seems to be getting a bit more scruffy and weathered in the feathers, very gradually, over time. I'll post an image to try to clarify. It's the one back and to the right, its face obscured by the hoe. It's behavior isn't too weird but it seems to be getting progressively... disheveled and scruffy for lack of a better term. None of the other birds are molting. It's been over the course of a week or two.
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Nov 12, 2016 23:14
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i've had chickens moult by themselves, the whole flock doesn't usually do it at once, so hopefully that's what it is. what's its behaviour like? is it staying or nesting away from the group or lying down a lot? if it's not then the problem is likely just dermatological, which if it's not a moult could be a parasite. poultry parasites are easy to see, just catch it and check for things crawling on its skin or white clusters of eggs around the bases of its feathers. apart from that i'm not sure what it could be but i hope it clears up! make sure it has plenty of dry dust to bathe in, maybe dig up a bit of earth for it if they haven't clearly marked out a dust-bathing bowl anywhere
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Nov 13, 2016 05:00
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Look what I found!
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Jan 10, 2017 21:14
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that snake is doomed, nobody survives the guinea fowl execution circle
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Jan 10, 2017 23:41
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i have three week-old pearl keets at the moment! i'm trying to hand-tame them, which is something i haven't really been able to achieve with any guinea fowl yet - quails and chickens are pretty easy to hand-tame if you start young but guineas seem to just be wilder. currently i have four adult roosters and a hen (i give half-grown guineas away as presents a lot and am obviously not very good at sexing them) so i'm hoping i get at least two girls out of this trio. today they went on a big adventure to the orchard and met the adults, some of whom were indifferent to them and some of whom tried to kill them (i stayed close by for this reason) marianne the wheaten maran already has some adolescent chicks so she didn't want to adopt the keets but nor did she attack them so that was good  ziggy stardust is now inexplicably in a permanent bonded relationship with a black australorp hen named eunice, while paula keeting, previously his mate, now hangs out with the three younger roosters, none of whom are getting any action because she's laying unfertilised eggs at the moment   that's the whole adult flock and the three keets, who showed a definite preference for following the adult guineas around instead of the chickens even though they came out of an incubator and have never seen an adult guinea before. i guess that means they recognise their own species instinctively, which is cool! i was hoping paula (the only lavender one) would adopt them, but hens that aren't currently sitting on eggs adopting random chicks is super rare even for chickens and guinea fowl are far less maternal than chickens so i didn't have high hopes. eventually she started getting agitated at them so i took them away. it's not the right time to introduce small children into the strange and complex sociopolitical world of my fowl flock    ~queepy chee~
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Jan 22, 2017 04:34
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  adventurous youth! every time i take them for a walk, two return peacefully to the brooder box and the other flees into the grassland at high speed. luckily they gravitate to the adult guineas so they're easy to track down - they're not as fast as the grown ups yet so i just have to get between them and the main flock and they run straight into my hands. it's good for my self esteem to be able to outwit the keets. another 25 eggs are in the incubator. i've been having serious incubator problems (partially because our region is prone to 12-hour blackouts) so that doesn't necessarily mean there'll be 25 keets, but fingers crossed
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Feb 5, 2017 00:07
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Keets!
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Feb 5, 2017 00:14
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I can't get over how cute the keets are (at first)
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Feb 5, 2017 00:36
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i've been hand-feeding these ones mealworms so they're pretty tame and when i go into their room they jump up and down and go preeee at me  we're still hoping eunice will hatch some guinea-chicken hybrids, which is very rare but does happen
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Feb 5, 2017 00:38
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Avshalom posted:guinea-chicken hybrids haha these things look amazing    
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Feb 5, 2017 00:48
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That's almost what I'd expect a peacock/vulture hybrid to look like
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Feb 5, 2017 00:53
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poultry are the most ridiculous thing in the world and guinea fowl are the most ridiculous poultry
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Feb 5, 2017 01:27
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Feb 5, 2017 15:54
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majestic
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Feb 5, 2017 16:02
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true dignity
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Feb 5, 2017 18:33
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Church spire? No, a poultry E: need one of those "sloth or croissant?" memes but it's "guinea fowl or majestic architecture"
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Feb 6, 2017 01:33
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  the three keets have graduated to the big hen house! they're enjoying their newfound freedom, hanging around the older chickens and guineas with no problems, dust-bathing and sun-baking for the first time in their life, and probably going to die to a hawk attack soon but that is unfortunately just the reality of free-range poultry out here. i got a bit emotional when i put them out for their first night in the coop, it was like sending a small child off to school for the first time. luckily i can visit them whenever i want and because i fed them mealworms they still come scuttling when they hear the call (which is "chii chiiii!")  a glimpse of the elusive wind keet 
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Feb 13, 2017 03:47
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    do the keet dance!
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Feb 14, 2017 04:01
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*keeting intensifies*
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Feb 14, 2017 09:06
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Such bird feet.
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Feb 14, 2017 16:44
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Is there a way you could record their prreeeee sound and post it? I feel it is very important that we hear it
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Feb 25, 2017 21:53
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 sadly we lost one keet to a hawk, but the other two are doing great. one is a male and one is a female - the two sexes have different calls (males go nyank, females go wank-WANK wank-WANK, it's very offensive) and the children call from a very early age, albeit in squeaky baby voices. during the day they hang around with the adult guineas and at night they've been adopted by my sussex cross hen, the broodiest creature known to mankind, who lets them snuggle up under her with her own chicks. they still come when they're called and have reached their funniest stage of development where they're shaped like the adults but still have their stripy juvenile plumage   one of my other hens is sitting on ~20 guinea eggs and barring an unexpected reptile attack they're due to hatch on wednesday. i haven't had a chicken raise keets from hatching yet (we got close but a goanna stole the eggs like two days before they were due  ) and she's a good mum so that's going to be fun to watch!here are some alt-keets. these species aren't available in australia although people in africa and america who keep them say they're just like domesticated guineas in their upkeep and personality. i live in hope that one day they will come to our fair shores the helmeted guinea fowl is the direct ancestor of the domestic guinea. keets in the wild have a spectacularly low survival rate so these parents are to be commended!:   the crested guinea fowl looks like my aunt:   and the vulturine guinea fowl is the greatest creature known to man:    keets
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Feb 26, 2017 01:45
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i will try to record some guinea fowl noises, i used to have a digital camera that was great for sound recording but my mother tried to take a close-up film of simmering bolognese sauce and dropped it in and it hasn't been quite right ever since
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Feb 26, 2017 01:47
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 22:56 |
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Avshalom posted:i will try to record some guinea fowl noises, i used to have a digital camera that was great for sound recording but my mother tried to take a close-up film of simmering bolognese sauce and dropped it in and it hasn't been quite right ever since thank you!
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Feb 26, 2017 04:15
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