Sunday, October 12, 2014

Guinea keets go free today

Today I released the "infant" guineas and their mama guinea from the pen.  The infants are 6 weeks old today.  I still call them the infants to keep track of them.  They're not infants, they are the size of a bluejay.  They can fly fine.  We have so many guineas, it gets confusing.

We have 5 adult male guineas and 1 adult female.  The female has 17 keets by her side.  All babies from those 5 boys.

We also have 10 "teenage"  guineas, raised earlier this year from guinea eggs we found out in the woods, all babies from those adult guineas.  The teenagers were adopted out to chicken hens when they were still eggs, and chickens raised them until they were big enough to go free.  The adult guineas don't accept the teenagers, and still chase them.  The teens still think they are chickens and would love to be penned up in the chicken pen with the other chickens.  I don't know why the adult guineas don't like the teen guineas.  Next spring when the adult males are looking for mates they will forget that they don't like them, I bet.

We wondered if the 5 adult male guineas would accept the infants into their little flock.  Sure enough, they did.  They treat them just like their own babies.  And the babies love the adults males, going to them, being fed by them, one big happy family.  The mama guinea loves her 5 boyfriends and is happy to be free with them again.  One of them was her mate, but I can't tell which right now, they are all hanging close to her and her keets. 

So now the adult males are busy with their new family and have stopped chasing the teenage guineas.  The teens are kinda bored and started chasing the outside cats for fun.  I'm betting the cats will keep their distance from the infant guineas, and from all the guineas, in fact.

It's chaos here.  We never expected to have this many guineas running free around our house!