New Guinea Keet Nursery

In preparation of the new guinea keets which are due at the end of this month, we decided we needed to do some coop rearrangement.

We were having an issue with the other chickens constantly disturbing the 2 broody hens.  The other hens just wanted to lay their daily eggs, and the 2 broody hens were taking the 2 most desirable nest boxes.  At one time yesterday morning all 9 of our nest boxes were busy and one hen was laying an egg on the floor near the nest boxes.  We have 18 hens.  I tell you, those nest boxes are busy in the mornings!

New coop area with door going into guinea-only pen

 Luckily our chicken coop is a large building and two thirds of it was setup as storage areas for straw and feed.  Yesterday we moved all the extra straw and made another chicken coop area for the broody hens and for the keets when they arrive.  We made 2 closeable chicken doors from this new coop ~ one enters into the current outside chicken pen, and the second door will enter into a new outside pen which is yet to-be-built.  This new pen will be for guinea keets and mama hens only - so they can go outside before they are integrated into the entire flock.  The new pen will be temporary and will be removed when the keets are big enough to free-range with the other guineas.  Then the new coop area will be dedicated to guineas, if they should want to return to the safety of the coop at nighttime instead of sleeping in the trees.

We built new nest boxes for the hens and the eggs.  We learned last year that keets like to sleep in the nest box where they were born, and last year the nest boxes were very full of young growing keets and their mama hen Bella every night.  The new nest boxes were made bigger to accommodate growing keets who haven't yet started to sleep on roosts and still want to sleep beside their mama in a nest box.

Both broody hens were very happy with their new home.  They settled in quickly and told us to leave them alone!

Bella

 

Mama Charlotte

Happy Mother's Day!!