A bit of rural living.

We began this summer with 3 adult guinea fowl; 2 older M & F adults and one remaining offspring of theirs. They had one clutch early on in the summer, most of which died because the youngster was given the job of caring for them after she hatched them, and she was frankly, a terrible mom. She has never been very successful at caring for keets. But we high hopes because some of the keets did survive for a few weeks. Just when it looked as though she was finally going to be successful she was killed by a hawk. Then the older mama adopted them, and she is a much better mom, by far. Four of that hatch survive to this day. That brought their number to 6 guinea fowl.

Then the older mama began laying more eggs and 3-4 weeks ago they hatched. We counted over 20 keets.  That meant that time was going to be tight as far as weather for their survival. We were in high hopes though. She has taken them through storms and 18°F nights and turned out to be an excellent parent.

The following videos are from the hatch earlier in the season. They are here to show just how small they are when first hatched. They are about the size of a golf or table tennis ball.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9skjtu0gtl4llz...3.MPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bky5bbum4lqwxb...4.MPG?dl=0


The largest and latest clutch of keets is over 3 weeks (?) old and they are in the extremely rapid growth phase. Mom has done a fantastic job of caring for them, but I'll let you count them in the video.

Approx' a week ago I noticed that a few of their butts were hanging outside mama's outstretched wings after they went to bed and the next night mama was no longer in the corner of the coop sheltering them under her, but everyone, including the keets, were on the roosts. Here they are about a week later. They are large enough and feathered out enough to tolerate our nighttime temps of the low 20s and teens (F) of this time of year.

I'm standing directly in front of the door on purpose. I want to teach them that I'm not to be feared. That will take a bit of time, then they'll get wild, then lose the fear yet again if experience has taught me anything. Mama and dad will be seen going in to encourage them to come out despite the big meanie being there. BTW, It's like that every morning. Dad has the more vertical and taller cone on his head, mama has the raked back conehead and is the 2nd to reenter the coop.

Yes, I need to get rid of some of them. There will be far too many for that little 4x8 coop during the winter. I want no more than 10 to overwinter and they'll still be crowded.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ks74tosad0yp83...9.MPG?dl=0

It was fun watching those clips, Brian. Are guinea fowl the only animals you keep or do you raise others?

Only easy animals Freddy, chickens also (leghorns, think Foghorn Leghorn), nothing larger for food producing animals. This spring will see our old layers turned into soup. I'll advertise them in "free for the taking" in all likelihood, and a new batch to take over the henhouse. We'll be without eggs for a few months.

I'd like to build another chicken house and get Jersey Giant meat birds. If you've never eaten heritage chicken you can't believe the difference in taste between an agribusiness bird and a "real" chicken. It's like taking the flavor of 6 factory birds and condensing it down into one chicken. The meat has a better texture too. The other huge difference is that there is actual dark meat along with the white meat. With a factory bird what was dark meat at one time in the chickens ancestors, the dark meat was basically bred out of the birds, plus they can't use their legs because the body grows so rapidly. Basically they are just animals that move very little and live to eat, grow, and deficate. They move as little as possible. A heritage bird can actually move around and enjoys doing so. Rather than making it to the table in 12 weeks it could take a year to get that bird to the table and all of that time the flavor of the meat is developing. If you ever have the opportunity to buy a heritage bird I urge you to do so, but understand that it will be far more costly than a factory bird.

I shall have to do that, Brian.  I know exactly what you are talking about when it comes to a "factory bird" as chicken, in particular, has almost no flavor.  It is no different with agribusiness produce.  Try going into a supermarket and getting a tasty tomato, carrot, or avocado.  It's darn near impossible.

By the way, I have only had guinea fowl twice, at a Michelin star restaurant in Scotland that is no longer there.  Needless to say, the meal was not inexpensive but the taste was a little slice of heaven.  All of their food was locally sourced and the difference from what you can get in a supermarket was unbelievable.

I wish I had more room this year to keep more of them through to the spring for meat. You're the 2nd person who has told me how delicious they are.

I love their eggs, IMO, much better than chicken. That's if the nest can be found. The first year I didn't find the nest and there were over 120 eggs in it once we did find them. They were all rotten of course. When I rototilled them into the garden it sounded like mini grenades as the tines broke them.

If you've never had guinea fowl then I highly recommend it, should the opportunity present itself.

Nice vids Brian. I heard they were very noisy birds but excellent "watchdogs".

Phil

Yes, very noisy but they quiet down as they gain life experience. One either needs tolerant neighbors, or needs to live rurally and still have tolerant neighbors. Our neighbors tell us that they have all the guinea fowl that they want (ours) since they don't respect property lines. They like having them around as much as we do though because they keep the ticks under control. They're comical to watch too.

BTW, since those videos were taken they've grown quite a bit more. We can see them growing by the day.

Yes, very noisy but they quiet down as they gain life experience. One either needs tolerant neighbors, or needs to live rurally and still have tolerant neighbors. Our neighbors tell us that they have all the guinea fowl that they want (ours) since they don't respect property lines. They like having them around as much as we do though because they keep the ticks under control. They're comical to watch too.

BTW, since those videos were taken they've grown quite a bit more. We can see them growing by the day.

Brian,
Since they can fly and are off visiting the neighbors do they return every night to roost in your coop or do they roost in trees?

Phil

There was one exception to what I'm about to write, with our guinea fowl.

Yes, they can fly a good distance, but at heart they don't really want to. They do what the wife and I call "forced marches" pretty much all day. They fan out and move enmass eating everything that looks edible in their path. But they return home to the coop at night. To get them to return is pretty easy to train into them. When they're young just keep them confined in the coop for 2 weeks with food and water of course. That gets them to think of it as home. Then just trig the door so that it remains open so that they can return to it to sleep and they'll return all on their own. Those that learned the lesson by confinement will then teach it to their keets.

OK, one exception... Todays adolescent guinea fowl... One night they were being adolescent and rebellious (I suppose) and wouldn't go into the coop when it was time for me to close it up for the night. There might have been one or 2 that were inside, but at least one just wasn't going to go in. So I closed the coop up to protect the majority. The juvenile delinquents were on their own that night and were unable to water before bedding down, and had no access to high protein food either. Strange, but every night since they've been in the coop before it gets dark. Amazing how that works.

If the numbers of GF are too great and they squabble they can drive some outside. It hasn't happened to us, but that has happened to a friend. Her GHs were hatching eggs right and left and they took to tree roosting. At one point she had 30 some odd GF. Today due to predation she has 3 left I think she told us. That's what we started this spring with, and now we have 24. I think I may have mentioned that we need to move 12 to a new home. I don't want to happen to ours what happened to hers.