These are our new keets we got from a farm yesterday. They are already about 2 weeks old the lady said (give or take). They are spaz cases. :) We've never raised keets before. Are they always piling up in corners whenever something moves near them? They are also (if possible) messier Marvins than the chicks. They managed to spread their food all over the floor of the brooder. But they are cute! :-)
Oh, I didn't realize keets were so cute! Messier than chicks? Boy, that must be bad:0)
They are very pretty. And these are "just" regular pearl guineas - not any of the fancy colors. Yeah, I'm not sure how they do it (get food all over), since they don't scratch with their feet like chickens. They must use their beaks and shovel it around.
start handling htem more, i think they are more scared then they should be...
She had them in her barn in a large stall, but I don't think they got any handling. I will try that.
If we remember too that Guinea Fowl are a few hundred years to a few thousand years less domesticated than chickens ... you can understand their fear of humans. They are naturally far far less tame. Just go see how friendly a Guinea Fowl hen with keets underneath is when you walk up close (NOT). My 6 year old got the fear of death & hell scared into him last evening when herding the guinea hen to the safe "night box". She spread her wings and charged him. Good thing he was quick on his feet or she'd have been all over him. He cried even just having to run away. This is his/my 1st guinea hen experience with keets running around. We're only doing it this way because its the middle of summer and hotter than hell here. We've been having 90-105f degree high temps. We also have a new policy about keets, ducklings and chicks. They get brooding cages or impregnable night boxes till they're feathered out or flying.
Photographer, you are right about their level of domestication. I was thinking about that earlier. Still, they are calming down a bit more. For the trip home (about a two hour drive) we put them in one of those "critter carrier" clear plastic bins with the colored snap-on lids. My husband held them on his lap most of the time and if he so much as twitched his pinky finger, they freaked out. When I go them into the brooder (which is a large Sterilite tote box), they piled up in one corner and slept for a long time. Any movement nearby would panic them. Today they are actively bopping around even with me sitting here next to them. They didn't pile up when I walked by. But try to take the top off the brooder and they go back to panic mode. I took one out and held it for several minutes and it was yelling its head off at first and then finally realized that I wasn't going to kill it. It still wasn't thrilled, but it did calm down.
I love how they stand straight up on their legs and stretch their necks waaaay up looking to see what they can see.
Just a suggestion, I know mine are chickens, but when I get a phone call I sit by their pen and talk away, they calm down real fast and when I talk to them they look up at me now and dont run away. Now when DH burps, well maybe they will get use to that as well. It sure cant hurt if you have to time.
music is good too...
