I have a question about keets.....we've never had them before this small. We just got the 10 today, and they are not looking too good....any advice would be appreciated! Are they a lot like raising chicks? Do they need anything special?
how to raise keets?
I think Guineas need game bird starter crumble, like at least 22% protein. I also think you need to put marbles in their water to keep them from drowning. They need a heat bulb, I think the heat requirements are similiar to chicks. Maybe put some sugar in their water to pep them up. They also make electrolytes for poultry that you could try. I've not had the pleasure of raising guineas yet, but have read about them. Lots of people on here do have guineas and I'm sure someone will come by tonight or in the morning and respond. Did you dip their beaks in water to teach them to drink?
Hey patch, we gave them some high protein turkey starter....I think I read that somewhere....I dipped their beaks in warm sugar water when they came, and then put a little sugar in their waterer. I put rocks in the waterer too, after we noticed that they just couldn't seem to stay out of it and kept getting stuck and soaked. We have a heat lamp on them too. We were supposed to get 10 keets....well, before we canceled the order, thats on another thread, but we were sent 13 and have lost 4 so far. I'm not sure if there is anything else we can do for them.
Does anyone know if they are harder to start than chicks?
I'm curious too! I'm thinking about getting some also.
I think they are a bit harder than chicks. How are they doing now?
well, the 9 we have left seem to be doing ok for now. I guess I'm a little nervous about them because this is new, and losing some already is making me antsy. I don't think they will be sleeping in my bedroom tonight though.....wow, are they vocal little things! I think the little poults in our LR are going to be getting 'upstairs' neighbors! lol :)
: )
since they are small they tend to get colder. they do shut up eventaully. byu one week old i had ours on a good bedtiem schedule. 12 hours of white heat lamp bulb, twelve with the red, and then they shush up. once they are feathered enough to not have the heat lamp, just turn out their ligh and tell them a story, they'll go right to sleep!
good luck with your keets. honestly, i would love to have some more guineas!
tf
thanks tf....how long does it take for them to fully feather?
We ended up putting their cage on top of the poult cage last night....its one of those bird cages with the removable pull out bottom, so the poults didn't get any 'surprises' dropping out of the 'sky!' The temp dropped here last night and it has been hard to keep them warm and comfy. We lost one more last night...: ( They seem to topple over pretty easy, and then have a hard time getting back up. I'm wondering if the ones we got were a weak group or if this is normal for keets. They just haven't looked all that healthy since we got them, but I guess that could be stress or due to shipping. I hope the rest hand in there!
TF.....why the red light? Does it calm them down.....like 'mood' lighting?
Hi, we have keets that we got from Ideal on May 14. We lost one but have 9 left. We put them on turkey starter right from the start and have had no trouble with them. We kept the roosters that were shipped with them right there and that might be the difference. We don't have a red light, but did keep a 100watt household light about 6 inches up from them. They were in a rabbit cage until we could move the teenager chicks out of the garage to the temporary henhouse. Then we divided the pen we keep the chicks in for the elementary pullets and the kindergartners. We put the same light there about the same height, and am just now starting to turn it off in the daytime. We did have some nights that went down into the 20s last week, but they seemed to be just fine.
BTW, one thing we did was to make sure there was a draft barrier around the area where they were. When they were in the rabbit cage, we used the cardboard from a box around the outside of the cage, and when we moved them into the pen, we used a cardboard box that we had used previous for the chix as a brooder box.
GG
granny....you crack me up with calling yours teenagers and kindergartners! soo funny!
We have ours on turkey feed, and are also using a 100 watt bulb....we were using a heat lamp bulb, but it got soo hot I was afraid we were about to cook them! When I noticed them all bunched in a pile last night, I wrapped a blanket around their cage. I just lowered the bulb a bit and they are spreading out a bit!
At this point, I'm not sure if we are losing some due to it being our fault, or if it is the hatchery. They came from Griffith, and his chicks have always been healthy and strong and we have had really good luck with them, but with a different bird, maybe a different result? (scratching my head)
Well, as a women's prerogative, I changed my mind. We were going to band the teenagers and put them with the adults, but I think we are going to put the elementary chicks with the teenagers in the temporary coop for a few more weeks, then put the keets and little roos up there with them. The elementary chicks are sex-links and are flyers. The teenagers are BAs and don't fly that much. In fact, they actually don't fly very much at all.
GG
yes, draft free, good idea.
guineas need a routine. that is where the red light comes in, it's like moomlight, they know it is night, but can see well enough to eat drink & not be scared...
they'll be feathered well in six weeks. whenever you can get their cage moved to their permanent building, that will help to imprint them. remeber they are BARELY domesticated... they will need imprinting for six weeks before you begin turning them out & teaching them to cone in...
do you have this book? get it:
www.guineafowl.com
great info & message board here too!
btw, perhaps the wire in the bottom of the cagfe is too bug, put some shelf liners down till they grow bigger feet, then tey'll astop falling over...
tf
I'll have to get that book, thanks for the advice. Our little keets are not doing so well. We only have 4 of the 13 left now. I don't think we have had so many problems raising anything! We are wondering if the poor things have cocci? Is it treatable....what are the signs of it? All I know for sure is that one of them was dying in the box when we got them and they looked a little sickly. All of them. The 4 that are left are looking pretty strong, so I am hopeful!
hmmm, imprinting....I had never heard of that before. That is pretty interesting. We got 2 keets last year that were about 2 months old and kept them with the chicks the whole time they were with us. They just kind of did what the chicks did though, including going in at night....so I didn't know about the imprinting. I guess that because we did the same thing with them everyday and night, they did end up getting a routine. We ended up having to give them to a neighbor though, after they were grown, because the 2 of them were so mean to our chickens. They have done fine at the neighbors though and with his chickens, so we just figured with our guineas and chickens being the same age at the same time, they had taken lead in the pecking order. We thought that this time though, with the chickens being older, we wouldn't have this problem. I hope I am right!
sorry you only have four left. cocci is treatable with milk, store, raw, or powdered...
you may want to ask for a replacement, unless that means he'll send more cornish LOL
milk? Really? Wow, who knew it didn't take a special med from the vet or at farm and home store! I can go and do that now! Thank you so much tf....I would never have guessed that. Do you think feeding little ones you get with a little milk as soon as they come in the shipping box a good preventive measure?
We only have 3 left today... : ( These are the keets that came in the 'surprise order' so we haven't paid for them, otherwise I would call for sure and tell him what is happening and see what he would do about it.
Yeah more cornish.....not! lol I think my dh has lost it....he ordered another 100 of the 'barnyard special' for September....I told him he better call back and tell them that under no circumstance do we want another 100 cornish and if he can't assure us that it won't be another 100 cornish, we are going to have to place a different order. Geesh! : ) He is always the optimist and the one with rose colored glasses...you know....SURELY it wouldn't happen again....yeah right....I must be more the realist knowing that if it happened once already once and it wasn't supposed to, then it could happen again. The only thing worse would be if the whole double order surprise package thing started all over again in Sept......even I don't think THAT could happen again, but the way things seem to go for us, you never really know! : ) (sigh)
oh NO! a nightmare in disguise LOL
i give mine goats milk occasionally. i think silkiechick is the one who said it took care of cocci, someone a while back had problems. seem to be a bad year for it. and she had said powdered milk.
the first time i heard of giving milk to chickens for any purpose it just floored me. but they sure love it as a treat and thrive on it. last night when i came in late, they were all tucked in but panting and panting form the heat, even with both doors open and a abreeze [how can it be called a breeze when the air is so dry and hot?]
so i took them a half gallon of buttermilk tha tcaem from the store. at first they saw white stuff and got all excieted, then looked at me funny LOL. guess they were hoping fo rBrandywine necter! but i bet after i leftr they drank it!
I beg they drank it too! I gave our 3 remaining keets a little dish of warm milk and after they waded around in it and played for awhile, they drank it. They are looking much better today!
Last night though, we thought we had lost another one though......and I mean REALLY lost it! The bigger holes in the only available cage we had to put them in were not covered as good as we thought they were, and the little gray all over one was flat out gone. We looked under the dressers, a stool, in a clothes basket....we even got a flash light....we could not find it anywhere. I was really pretty worried that our sneaky little cat had 'found' herself a snack, but I didn't see any feathers anywhere. This morning I was in the kitchen and I heard the loudest racket coming from my room. I went in and followed the noise and sure enough, there the little gray one was. The poor thing had taken a 2 foot tumble out of the cage, then skittered across the bedroom and tucked herself in good in the closet! Whew, that was a close one. I still can't believe it went ALL night and didn't make one little peep! That won't be happening again....I got some cardboard and duck tape and secured it really well around the outside bottom of the cage. No more 'trips' for my babies! : )
It is such a relief when you find them!
My 3 week olds have just started doing kamakazi flights off the chest of drawers where their brooder is. First they fly up onto the waterer, then to the edge of the brooder which is about 2 1/2 feet deep, then a nose dive to the ground over 5 feet down. Then they wander around the bedroom peeping until someone finds them and puts them back and the whole thing starts over again. Like having a 2-year-old! Tonight I moved them into the swimming pool brooder--the 6 week olds were fine in there, but I am not sure it will hold this group. Has anyone noticed how each hatch behaves differently--even the same breed. Must be a new ringleader in each group.
I should have known that I had not pulled a first in this group! lol.....so funny. Didn't want to mention it before, but this happened with our 2 mo old turkey poult, Silly Suzy. We realized she was too big for her box when she flew out....we looked all over and couldn't find her either....and not a peep, which was very odd for her. I was walking to bed and passed a chair with my big fleece robe hanging over it, and my foot hit something hard. I bet down to look at what I had hit, and it was her. I could not believe it! She had would herself up so tightly in that robe, that she was like a swaddled baby, and she had been sound asleep the whole time! I still can not figure out how in the world such a little thing could be wound up so tight and snug in there, but I was sure glad I found her and I didn't hurt her! She got her new home that night! A bird cage!
hmmm, catscan.....I haven't done enough hatches to really notice and with our going to auctions and always adding a new someone or 2, or 3.....I think ours just get used to starting a new pecking order over and meeting new someones.
i lost a keet year before last,,... in my defense they are so tiny... found it, somehow still alive.... when i changed their water!
They are very tiny! I have had very good luck hatching my guinea eggs - I've been having about a 95% hatch rate, and all the little keets are pretty active and healthy looking, at least so far!
Here is a picture of one just about an hour old - still damp. I think I have maybe 35 of them that hatched in the past 10 days. I keep trying to count them, but darn, they move fast!!!
oh no tf....was it under the waterer? I did that by accident with one of our cornish. The crazy things 'attacked' around the waterer I didn't even know the fat little thing was under there. For some reason, I went back in and moved it soon after, and there he was. Somehow, he was fine....just a little dazed and winded looking and a bit put out. Now we put it on bricks! Glad you found your keet alive!
wow beth, that is a high rate! The little buggers sure are fast, aren't they? : )
They sure are! My husband says they are so, so cute when they are little, and they are so so ugly when then are adults! But they are a never-ending source of amusement for us. I love them. I am going to have to sell some of these, I have too many.
I was sure glad to hear someone say they were really fast though...we are used to chicks, and with these being our first new keets, we were worried something was wrong with them!
Oh, no - they are very difficult to catch!! Even when they are only a day or two old! And when they are grown - omigosh! The males chase the females all around the farm - faster than I ever imagined they could run. They really don't do much in the way of flying, they roost in the chicken coop, not trees, so they don't have a big need to fly, I guess.
I hope you enjoy them.
And we have also had a huge surplus of ladybugs here in Kansas this year - but if you don't watch out, your guineas will eat them as well as the bad bugs.
I didn't notice that my keets were all that tiny. They were the same size as the roosters Ideal sent with them. But, yep, one of them squeezed through the bars on the rabbit cage the first day we put them in it. We were standing right there and caught it before it took a tumble off the table the cage was on. I put cardboard around the outside of the cage and that kept them in. They are almost 4 wks old now and are larger than the chicks they are with. We have them in the pen in the garage for another few weeks and then will put them out with the other chicks from this years hatch. The only problem I forsee is getting them in the temporary henhouse for the first few nights until they learn that is where they are supposed to be at night. So far, we haven't had any problems after about 3 or 4 nights with putting the chicks up there.
GG
Notice I say so far. LOL
Granny - this was the first hatch from the guineas I hatched last August. Some of the eggs were really tiny, and the guineas from those are still very tiny after a few days - they are sure cute. There are about 6 really small ones, the others are larger. I had to keep my guineas in the coop for several weeks after I put them out there for them to understand that when they free range with the other birds, they need to go back in there at night.
Beth, you say you had to KEEP them in the coop for several weeks after you put them out there for them to understand that when they free range with the other birds, they need to go back in there at night. Do you mean you locked them in a building 24 hours a day to imprint that on them? Our coop is an open area 40 by 100 ft with a metal shelter/henhouse in it. There is nothing over the top because of the size. Even with it being divided in half to separate the young chicks from the older ones, it would be almost impossible to cover it. So, when you say coop, are you saying a yard, or a henhouse?
GG
I have never bought guineas from mail order. I bought a group of 8 .... 3 week olds from a neighbor. I suspect the shipping is difficult for them ... especially since they are smaller than chicks. One might try to buy from the Feed Stores in your communities. They'll often bring them in in groups of 25-50. If you get the last few remaining unsold guineas from a large order... they might be 1 week to 2 weeks old already. You odds greatly improve with each passing survival day. My guineas lay eggs all the time in the spring and summer. I have a hen on a pile that looks like maybe 20 eggs. She's a good mother hen ... hardly ever leaving the nest. I've also got an American Game Fowl hen setting on a dozen guinea fowl eggs .... due to hatch any day now. Kelly
oh, that is great, getting a hen to hatch guinea eggs! if i had a spare broody iw ould have done that with mine. maybe next time a muscovy seems broody, if i can find the current guinea nest... hmmm..
yes, GG, she means 24/7. they just aren't that domesticated and need extra help understanding not to roam. it would be worth getting that fold up brooder cage out of the garage and setting it up in the henhouse or somewhere in the pen. that way they are locked up IN the pen with out having to lock up your other fowl. that is how i do it. after six weeks [start as young as possible], they are well acquainted with the other chickens, and vice versa, plus it actually takes some coaxing to get them to go OUT... pretty fun to watch! and then it is usually the Alphas that go out first, it may take a whole week for all to get that brave.
belief me, they are so predator prone, it is worth it to lock them up for six weeks to protect yourinvestment!
tf
Wish I could do that. Since I have 3 sets of chicks, and no room in the temporary henhouse to put the pen, I am going to have to take a chance that they have bonded with the little roosters they came with. Right now, we have the BAs we hatched and the sex-links together in the temp henhouse. I hadn't planned to put them with the adults until around August when the BAs are 4 months old. The sex-links will hopefully be large enough to put them with the adults too. Then I will put the keets and little roos in the temp house and hope they don't fly over the 7 ft fence. Right now, we don't seem to be having any predator troubles. In fact, the only thing we have seen nearby is the one possum I shot and the occasional skunk (didn't see it, but did smell it!!) going through the yard at night.
Of course that could change in an instant, but I think I will have to take a chance on nothing happening.
GG
Those skunks can be awful - we had a skunk kill about 6 keets last summer - it was horrible. the darn thing actually pulled the hardware wire door I had fashioned off it''s hinges.
Now we have a run with coops inside the run - I've had great success with the solar blinking lights that come on at dusk in keeping predators away.
I know they work because I actually saw a skunk turn away from them. Of course, the stinker headed into the barn, and my dogs got sprayed, and I nearly got sprayed, but no lives were lost!
Beth, I just found my recipe for "skunk odor remover" that you can make up to get rid of the smell from your barn, dogs and of course, youself.
1 pint hydrogen peroxide
1 drop dish soap (any kind)
1/4 cup baking soda
Mis all together. Put in a sprayer bottle and spray the area or just dump on smelly area.
This will not keep, (at least so I have been told) so you have to make it up every time you need. DH used it when we caught a skunk in the live trap next door and had to dispose of it. It took the odor away immediately.
GG
That's the formula they used on MythBusters!
Wow, I knew that coons and owls could be pretty clever in getting into places...we even had an owl untwist a heavy wire and get all 13 of our turkeys a couple years ago....I didn't know a skunk would do that too...sneaky little things! I think our dogs keep skunks away too...I haven't seen any...but the dogs seem to get skunked an awful lot!
Thank you so much GG for that recipe....I'm going to be trying that right away. My boxer smells just horrid right now and it just won't go away! Guess who's gonna get a bath and don't know it yet? lol : )
Yep, I would guess your boxer, LOL. I don't know about Mythbusters because I don't watch TV that much. I got it from my mail carrier. I guess she may have gotten it from there, tho.
GG
Mythbusters tests out any type of popular myth--with a scientific approach. They tested several skunk remedies inluding tomato juice and alcohol. The one that worked as well as the best working commercial formula is the one described above. Their biggest problem was getting a skunk that would spray--and they were totally wild skunks. They ended up using synthetic skunk scent.
Neat....I haven't seen Mythbusters either. I can't believe they couldn't get a skunk to spray.....did it show what they did to try to get them to spray? I have heard that skunks don't like to spray and will only do so if startled and/or afraid or trying to protect themselves. Wherever I heard this from said that they don't like to spray because it takes them a long time to refill their 'stink pouch' (located next to the rectum).....and leaves them without any way to protect themselves for awhile.
I had to deal with skunks when we had cows in a back pasture and would have to go round them up for morning milking. There was a little skunk family that would be out in the pre dawn light and when I went back there I would take a stick and pan and bang on it....or I would make clucky noises....or talk REALLY loudly to the cows. I wasn't taking any chances on surprising one...that's for sure!! : )
I'm sure glad I wasn't in on that test-----PEWWWWWEEEEE!
Don't get me wrong, I know what the Mythbusters program is, I just don't watch it. I don't watch much TV at all.
GG