Saturday, June 12, 2010

Keet and Chicken Update

The 9 guinea keets are now 8 days old.  They have doubled in size, but they are still very SMALL, if you consider they were the size of an egg when we got them.  They are very active, and their wings are starting to develop.  They totally believe that Bella the chicken hen is their mother; they listen to her every call and sleep under her wings.  Bella has developed into a good mother; she lets the babies eat before she eats, she protects the babies from us and other curious chickens.  The other chickens have tried to attack the babies, so we still keep Bella and the babies separated in their own section of the coop.  When something startles the babies, they tend to run in any direction and scatter, which I think would be bad if they were out with the chickens.  




Here is a video of Bella and the keets that I made this morning.



In other news, Leggy the rooster's eye has totally healed up.  It just took about 3 days of antibiotic water and he was all better.  When he couldn't see out of one eye he got very scared around the other roosters and ran from them all the time.  He wasn't good at judging distances, and had a tough time jumping up to the roost at night.  But when he got better, he got his spunk back, starting chasing the lesser roosters again, went back to his favorite hen, Freckles, and is able to sleep on the roosts just fine again.

This morning when I was in the chicken coop I watched as one of the hens, Chloe, laid an egg in a nest box.  I've seen this before, but never got it on film.  It's interesting how a hen stands all up, concentrates, and seems to work so hard to lay an egg.



And here she just laid the egg and is checking it.  You can barely see it under her.



Have a good weekend!

7 comments:

Chai Chai said...

We have 10 little guineas but no mamma hen to protect and teach them, ours are about 4 days old. We are excited but worried about how to raise them.

Carla said...

The keets are adorable! What color will they be when they get bigger?

Genny said...

They're beautiful! I'm so glad that Leggy's eye is completely healed. He's such a beautiful rooster.

John Going Gently said...

wonder guinea...... yes what colour wll they be????

Country Girl said...

You know, when you think about it, it is quite a miracle how they lay an egg with a tough shell and all. Poor hens! It must take alot of work! LOL! -- I was just thinking of all the work you guys must do to keep your chickens clean! Do you fertilize with chicken manure?

Razzberry Corner said...

Chai Chai - Your guineas are so cute! Our last batch were all dark colors like your dark ones. I've never had light ones before. So our young guineas will all be the same age!!

CeeCee - We were told the colors will be chocolate, coral blue and one white one. I believe there is one white one, but I don't know about if the others are chocolate or coral blue. I've looked up the colors of keets online, ours look like lavender, porcelain, or opaline, which are all variations of whitish or light colors. I think it'll be fun to see what they turn out to be!

Genny - Thanks, I've always held a special place in my heart for Leggy. I'm glad he healed quickly, too!

John Gray - Loved to see your little chicks! It's interesting to see how protective the mama hens are. My mama hen just doesn't good a good job, she lets other hens attack the babies all the time. We keep the hen & her keet babies separated from the flock of chickens.

Barb - Chickens really are not that much work. We just clean out the coop once a week, it only takes 20 min if Randy helps, 30 or 40 min if he doesn't. mayny people don't clean the coop but once a year, and do a deep litter method of bedding. Our coop just doesn't have enough air flow for that!

~Lynn

Lilla said...

Hi! Love your blog and all your farm critters. Those guineas are adorable. Thanks for recently visiting my blog and leaving a comment.