It's official. Guinea fowl are the most useless parents in the whole world.

A couple of years ago I was defending them against this accusation as our pair hatched 18 young and eventually successfully raised 12. But it's been all downhill since then.
Granted, they sit very well and do a great job of going unnoticed. It often takes me several days to locate their nests when I notice they are no longer sitting on the fence at night. And when it comes to near hatching time, the males defend the nest with gusto.

But they have shown an alarming ability to come off the nest at precisely the wrong time. Last year keets hatched from three of the four nests, but the mums would come off the nest as soon as a few hatched on the first morning. The result was very few young birds indeed.
But more shocking is the parents strict application of Spartan rules i.e. if you can't keep up, then tough. Now, being subtropical in nature, baby guinea fowl are not best suited to Britain's autumnal weather. In particular, long wet grass is deadly to them, for they quickly lose body temperature, become bedraggles and fall off the back of the pack.

One stormy couple of days last year did for most of the keets and we only ended up raising two, both of which had to come inside for part of their early lives.
I'm not too worried about this, but it is a shame and even I feel a tinge of sadness when I find a tiny ball of feathers lying motionless in the grass.

2015 has been decidedly untropical and as a result the guinea fowl were incredibly late laying and sitting. In the end there was one double nest, containing over 50 eggs, in the comfrey bed, a nest containing over 20 eggs in the raspberry patch and, belatedly, a nest containing just 12 eggs in amongst the rugosa roses.

The first two of these were inexplicably abandoned just days before hatching, but the final nest was still being sat upon right up until Sunday morning, when two keets appeared! One was doing a great job keeping up with mum, who was off the nest, but the other was on its side in the grass. I decided to let nature takes its course, but several hours later Sue appeared nestling a tiny bundle of feathers down her top! I suspected this might happen. Let me tell you that baby birds can be surprisingly noisy and, when they have grown a little, just a little whiffy too. Sue's plan was, however, just to get this little keet through its first few days and then to try and put it back with mum. This has worked for us in the past.


Roll on to yesterday morning. The sun was shining, though the easterly wind had a tinge of cool in it. The ivy, such an important late source of pollen, was smothered in buzzing honey bees and there were even a couple of pristine red admirals feeding on it.

Despite this burst of sunshine, the two new keets which I found were abandoned near the nest with mum back sitting. They clearly were not warm enough or strong enough to cover the short distance back to mum. This time it was I who buckled, so we now have three keets in a broody box in the dining room. The fourth bird is nowhere to be seen.

Next year I'm going to be ruthless. If we want more guinea fowl then I shall entrust the eggs to the care of a broody hen and they can be raised in the safety of a run.

Keets progress

Of the 32 guinea fowl eggs which were shared in the corner of the chicken pen, 12 hatched on 31st August. This was a slightly disappointing number, especially as at least another dozen had fully grown chicks inside. I don't know what happened there.















But life as a keet (that's a guinea fowl chick) is tough. Within the first week they were down to ten and then, just when I thought that the weakest had succumbed, I went down one morning and could find only 8. I later found one dead under an apple tree.
I don't know if it's just coincidence, but the same day I unearthed, under the biggest chicken house, a nest of young rats. They did actually look rather cute, but no mercy was shown! I have also raised the house up onto tyres. If the space underneath is big enough, the rats won't burrow under and feel safe.


A cute nest of ratlets.



But the guinea fowl saga has dragged on and on. Not quite sure when they started sitting, as we were away on honeymoon, we had almost given up hope on any hatching from either of the other two nests. But then on Saturday a fluffy little chick appeared next to G'nea, G'nea, the original mother of all guinea fowl who had devotedly sat on a wonderfully concealed nest further down the land.



3 very little keets. Look how much smaller they are than the one from the first hatch.

We left her undisturbed and I expected that, by Sunday evening, she would be attending to a small tribe of keets. But yesterday morning Sue came to tell me that she had moved back to the chicken enclosure, but with only three babies. This was very disappointing, especially as I had actually sold half a dozen keets and was hoping to be able to take three from each brood.




Sue retrieved the rest of the eggs and tried putting them under the third sitting guinea fowl. She also found one alive, half-hatched. She placed that under the girl too, but she showed no maternal instincts towards it and by this morning it had slipped away. however, when she stood up she had another chick underneath her, so I am now waiting with bated breath to see if any others hatch.

Meanwhile, down in the chicken enclosure, all the new youngsters are getting to know each other.





Elvis with her latest family.

ed  Intriguingly tonight, there are nine guinea fowl roosting up on the fence. This only leaves two adults for three broods! My guess is that the three very young keets have been adopted by the hen who has brought up the other eight. Either that, or the weasel who has appeared on the farm (and is most welcome) has had them, but I doubt it as all three were fit and healthy a couple of hours before dusk.

double ed   All three still there this morning, plus four new keets from the third nest!

Mini Guinea and Little Legbar - In Memory

 

Friday 9th November 2012
The calm sunset gave no hint of a shocking start to the day.

A shocking sight met my eyes this morning as I picked my way over the soggy ground to let the chickens out. For there, dead on the ground, was one of the Cream Legbar chicks which we raised in the house. These two chicks never became very streetwise in the big world with the rest of the chickens, but I didn't expect this to happen. In fact, last night I took a picture of the Elvis coop at roost to show how the young chicks had finally been accepted by the others. You can see one of the young Legbars front right - it's the barred plumage tucked under the wing of the older female Legbar.

I had assumed that the other was somewhere in the melee with Elvis, but how wrong could I be?

Little did I know when I took this piccie
that one of the chicks was missing.

 

It must have got itself stuck outside somewhere.

These two had become very friendly to me, as have previous cock Cream Legbars, but I always knew that one day they would have to go so they never acquired names and I always kept a distance.

 

 

But lightning struck twice last night. For I could only count ten guineafowl keets. I had suspected this last night, but wasn't sure in the gloom. It didn't take me long to find MiniGuinea lying dead too. For some days it had been struggling with the damp and the cold nights, often needing help up onto the roosting fence to spend the night protected by the warmth of its siblings.

 

Since we have lived here things have often seemed to balance out in sometimes cruel ways. These two sad losses closely followed the joyous birth of our third piglet litter.

I have become more hardened to it now. MiniGuinea was always facing an uphill battle and just never grew quickly enough. Always the weakest, the wet winter weather found it out.

 

The hardest part was telling Sue.

 

Chicken In A Bucket

Yes, those are Elvis's chicks in the bucket.
Why wait till you're fed?
The guineafowl chicks clearly have a good secret to share too!

Sunday 21st October 2012

Just look how the guineafowl keets are growing.
I'm not sure they can still be called keets.

Look at the differences in size too.
Can you spot Minifowl?

Damp weather kills guineafowl

The guineafowl family at roost

Tuesday 16th October 2012

Wednesday 17th October 2012

Just a couple of days ago I was telling a friend how it looked as if all eleven guineafowl keets would survive to adulthood, now that they are past the vulnerable little chick stage. In fact they are looking more grey than brown now and have begun to develop the wonderful spotty and barred plumage of adult birds. But one bird is about half the size of the others. Up until now it's been doing fine, but it was certainly the most vulnerable of the troupe.

Well, as you can see by the last two sunrise photos, we've had two wet, grey days here. Most of the rainfall has been at night and the guineas have looked a bit bedraggled by the morning, since they've taken to roosting exposed to all the elements on top of the fence, all in a line squashed together for warmth, comfort and security. Four lucky youngsters get the protection of a parental wing to form an umbrella over them.

During the day, the guineafowl gang roam freely around the smallholding, though they don't often wander far from the chicken pens. In fact, they regularly hop in and out of the pens. And odds are there will always be one or two on the wrong side of the fence, running up and down the fenceline in a panic, for they regularly forget that they can now get over. Not clever.





All this preamble leads me to the point of today's post. For this evening, at feeding time, I turned round from feeding the pigs and almost stood on the smallest guineafowl, all alone by my feet looking all forlorn. Hunched over with its wings drooping, things did not look good. This had come right out of the blue. All I could think was that it had suffered from two days of murky, damp weather and had maybe got separated from the others and not managed to get enough food during the day to keep its energy up.

Did Minifowl get separated from the rest?

 

Jostling for position dislodged
Minifowl three times.

All the more alarming was that it happily let me pick it up and nestled into my warm jumper. On the whole the guineas always stay at arm's length. I placed it up on the fence to roost with the others, but three times it fluttered back to the floor. Eventually I decided to put it in the hay-filled laying house, alongside one white hen who had decided to spend the night there.






But I knew this was one last throw of the dice. Surely in the morning I would find it quietly passed away.

I must admit, I trudged back up the garden with a slightly heavy heart. Life and death are part of the countryside but that doesn't mean that we lack compassion. We have just had to harden up to it a bit.

Chicks growing up fast

Thursday 11th October 2012

Main event of the day was letting Elvis's brood out of their run to join in the fun with all the other poultry. I kept an eye on them for a while, just to make sure none of the cockerels took a dislike to them, but it was quickly clear that they are strong and independent little things. I have witnessed this at feeding time, when they literally climb over my hands and arms to be first into the feed bowl!



Elvis keeps a watchful eye over her brood.



The chicks were very bold
and quick to explore.



Priscilla and her 3 chicks.
They've started to get their wing feathers now.
I should be able to work out their parentage soon.

Meanwhile, Priscilla is quietly getting on with raising her three chicks. They are in the high-rise coop for now, as Elvis has the other coop with a run.

The 2 Crested Cream Legbar hens along
with the ridiculously hair-styled Polands.

The previous chicks, the two Cream Legbar hens, are doing very well too and are taking on the form of proper hens. It won't be long before I separate them off with the Cream Legbar cockerel to make a trio. The trouble is, the two enclosures I can put them in are taken up. The ducks have one of them, though they'll be moving into the veg patches once I've cleared the beds a bit. The other has been adopted by the guinea family, still with eleven fast growing keets. However, they all roost in a row on top of the fence rather than in the house now. Seven keets have to rough it out while four get the shelter of their parents wings.



On the left: we still have eleven healthy keets.
On the right: Two Cream Legbar hens, two Polands
and the stripy one is one of Priscilla's last brood.
How quickly they grow!

 

Friday 12th October 2012
A grey morning following yesterday's rain.



New Chicks on The Block

Friday 28th September 2012

I present you with more unashamedly cute pics of Elvis and her young family. If I remember correctly, I don't actually think we put any of her own eggs under her, but she doesn't know that.

Strangely, though, when we tried to introduce a couple of incubator hatched chicks to her, even though they were exactly the same age, she was having none of it and we had to step in quickly to remove them again. (Remember those blue eggs that took so long to replace after 100% infertility the first time round - well we've got two out of six this time.)



Chicks have a habit of poking their heads out from anywhere.

Chicks available in a right assortment of colours.
They are already getting their wing feathers.
I wonder what they'll look like when they grow up.

Meanwhile, we still have eleven keets (guineafowl chicks), which is absolutely amazing given that we've left them pretty much to be reared naturally. They are now capable of quite sustained flight with controlled landing, even onto the top rail of the fence. This is fortunate as they're now all too big to squeeze through the chicken wire. They are quite independent at times and already have some flank spotting and feather barring.

It may sound very cruel, but by early next year we should be able to pick off some of the males for eating. That is, after all, our main reason for keeping them. That and clearing insects from the veg plots and orchard.

Thirteen keets

Tuesday 11th September 2012

Wednesday 12th September 2012

I am just about recovered from a long, long weekend away on the Hebrides. Yesterday morning the Spotted Flycatcher was still making aerial forays from the ash trees. They swoop out and back in a characteristic loop, plucking some small insect from the air along the way. However, I've not been able to relocate it since. While looking for it later in the roadside hedge, which is full of red hawthorns and dark elderberries now, a chiffchaff, a whitethroat and a blackcap appeared at various points though so birds are clearly on the move through the farm.

Sad news today as, on return from work, I could only count thirteen guineafowl chicks in the wet grass with their parents. The chicks have been getting more and more independent, but this has led them into more dangerous situations. Unfortunately I found the missing one drowned in the ducks' pool. It must have clambered up onto the pallet which acts as a ramp and couldn't get out once it fell in the water.

On a more cheery note, Don harvested his maincrop spuds last week and gave me a barrowload of rejects for the pigs. However, I have discovered that the geese are quite partial to them too, so the pigs now have to share.

Fourteen Keets

Thursday 6th September 2012
This morning I flushed a Snipe from the dyke.
A good start to the day.

Yesterday morning a weasel bounced across my path as I walked back from letting the chickens out. This was a most welcome sight as we've not seen one for quite a few months, not since Gerry caught one. But it was also slightly worrying news for the keets. Although the guineas defend their young robustly, they can't keep an eye on all of them all the time and the weasel is a pretty nippy little fellow.


When I returned yesterday, Sue told me she could only count fourteen keets. Whether this was down to the weasel or not, I don't know. I suspect not. It was only the other day that one became separated from the rest of its family and would surely have perished had I not heard it in the long grass of the orchard and reunited it.
















If it was indeed the weasel which took one of the keets I reckon it will return, so I've made the decision that if numbers go down much further we will be back to indoor rearing for a while.
As it is, fourteen is still a very good sized family to have survived this long.

They now spend much of their time in the chicken pen. They have joined the trribe of lder chickens, but the younger chickens are still driven off with vigour. In the evening the keets go through the fence to their separate house and Lady Guinea hops over to join them. G'nea G'nea roosts on the fence as lookout.

Meanwhile, I have put ten eggs under Elvis, which she has now been on for three days. Let's hope she gets to be a mother this time and that she has ten hens.

Keets reunited.

Friday 31st August 2012

Chickens lay chocolate eggs
Today something really amazing happened. We have had family staying for a while and the children have been collecting the chicken eggs for us. Well, today the chickens only went and laid a couple of Kinder Eggs for them! In all our time keeping chickens they have never laid even one of these for us!

Keets reunited
The seven keets already outside with their parents have flourished. It has been fascinating to watch how their mother and father look after them. Every evening Lady Guinea disappears into a deep tussock of grass and G'nea G'nea goes off on his own to roost with the chickens. In the morning they call to each other and he rushes out to join his family, foraging through the grass in the orchard and soft fruit patch. The little ones have learned to keep up with the parents, all staying together by constantly calling to each other. They are finding plenty of food for themselves, even leaping up into the air to catch insects disturbed from the grass. It is also notable that Lady Guinea has started to bring her family back in with the chickens, though she only trusts the older chcikens, with whom she grew up. In fact, Cocky often stands over the keets to protect them.
Fortunately the weather has been a bit fresher of late, so the grass has been a lot drier, particularly in the early morning.

So, having said that we'd decided not to place all our baby guineafowl in the one basket, today we decided that was exactly what we would do! Rearing the chicks inside pretty much guarantees their survival, but it is another job and they need plenty of cleaning out as they sure do produce a lot of odorous waste for such little fluffballs.


Today we carried the eight keets from inside down to the chicken pen and placed them on the ground. Lady Guinea quickly responded to their little calls so Sue released a couple of the keets into the midst of the others. This was the moment of truth. Would they be accepted or rejected and possibly even attacked?

Lady Guinea went straight over to the calling keets.

Well, it was as if they'd never been away. They mixed straight in and were welcomed back into the family. Pleased by this outcome, we reunited the rest of the keets and it was a true delight to watch all fifteen feeding under the feet of their parents, then slowly head off back into the orchard.

All fifteen keets. Confident little critters now.

Legbar chicks cast outside
That wasn't all the fowl action for the day though. We decided that the two Cream Legbar henlets could also go out, but into the protected environment of an enclosed run. We put them in with the Polands, who have been proving slightly shy of the other much larger chickens since I accidently let them out a few days ago.
I reckon they get picked on because of their ridiculous hairstyles. Apologies to any readers with similar hairstyles!

Way Hey! A new home.
Sue releases the Cream Legbar chicks.



The two Cream Legbar chicks in their new home with the Polands.