Guinea Mysteries

We used to have 3 guinea fowl - 2 hens and one male.  Then the male flew away in February of this year, and he was gone for for 3 months, leaving us with 2 hens.  We figured he died, but miraculously, he came back in May. 
Just like that. 
Just like he had never left, one day he was back, trying to pretend he was always here and we just didn't notice.   

In the end of March the 2 guinea hens starting laying eggs ~ they were 5 months old at the time. 

Then on April 19, 2010, less than a month after they started laying, both guinea hens stopped laying eggs.  They both just stopped, cold turkey.  No more guinea eggs. Done.

The hens were not broody, they never made a nest.  We looked everywhere.

Then in May when the male returned, one of the 2 guinea hens disappeared.  We figured she had to go do her 3 month sabbatical by herself in the woods like the male guinea fowl did. 
Either that, or a fox got her.

Now, yesterday, the 1 remaining guinea hen laid an egg again.  It was a tiny egg, barely an egg, only .2 oz.  Here it is with the chicken eggs we collected yesterday.

And today she laid another.  It's a normal size egg.  It's the teardrop-shaped egg right in the front of these chicken eggs.

 

Guineas just aren't the same as chickens.  They do things their way.

A Day in the ...Garden?

Yesterday was another 90+ degree day here in Maryland.  I spent all day out in the garden weeding.  The ground was so dry it was brittle.  I had to water the garden several times during my weeding so I could pull the weeds out of the earth!

I was out there in the garden so long I listened to an entire book on my iPod - Choke by Stuart Woods.  I've been listening to many Stuart Woods books lately. 

I listen to A LOT of books on my iPod - I work in Washington DC, so I sit in traffic for at least 2 hours a day.  Recently I've been listening to books I download from the local library.  

I got a nice sunburn on my back and shoulders from being outside in the sun all day.  But I love the sun, and enjoyed the heat, so I'm not complaining. 

After a full day of weeding, I'm still not done!  I'll have to try to finish in the evenings this week... 

I harvested quite a bit of green beans.  The Derby Garden bean plants seemed to produce the most beans so far.

The squash, cantaloupes and cucumber have lots of flowers, but only one small squash and a few small cukes were starting to grow. 

A few tomatoes are starting to appear.  The plants look dry.

The carrots are growing fine, but are small. 

It appears a critter has enjoyed most of my sugar snap peas, much to my regret.  They didn't bother the plants much, but ate all the peas!  We're going to have to put a better fence around the garden! 

Possibly it was a rabbit (we've seen one out in front of the house recently) or a woodchuck (Gordita the woodchuck lives in our backyard, and a male woodchuck visits very often).

While I was weeding the garden I dug up these odd, white, soft, seeds.  They appeared to be buried under grass and other weeds in the soft, moist dirt at the edge of the garden.  At first I thought they were some sort of egg because they were soft (like a snake or turtle egg), but they have roots, which make me think they are a seed of some sort.

Any ideas?  I tried to research them online, but had no luck.

I also dug up a little piece of history ~

It's some sort of old iron tool.  It appears to be broken.

This property had a farm on it from the 1700's through the 1900's.  We are always turning up some pieces of history, although we don't always know what they are!

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!

Leggy's eye injury

My favorite rooster, Leggy the white Leghorn, has gotten injured.  He got scratched in the right eye, most likely by another rooster.  A few days ago the area around his eye was so swelled, he could no longer open the eye.  We started him on antibiotics in water, and give only him this water from a dropper twice a day.  We always keep antibiotics on hand for the birds anyway.  He is very easy to handle, as he remembers when I used to cuddle him when he was a baby last year (what can I say, he was my first rooster, and he loved to cuddle!!)  That has made him very tame now.  He still lives outside with the other birds, but we just bring him into the house in the evenings for his eye treatment.

Beware, the second picture below may be gross to some...

This picture shows Leggy's good eye.

This picture shows his bad eye.  There are dark scabs around the eye now, but he can open it and the swelling is way down.  At nighttime I put antibiotic eye ointment on his eye - this picture was taken right after I put the ointment on him while Randy was holding him, so it looks kinda messy.

When we first noticed Leggy's bad eye a few days ago I really didn't want to just ignore the problem as I thought he may be blind in the one eye, and he was one of the roosters I wanted to keep.  He is our only White Leghorn. 

Get better soon!

Guinea Keets ~ Day 3

Guinea keets and Bella the chicken mama.  These pictures were taken Monday June 7, 2010. 

The keets are now 3 days old in these pictures.  They are eating solid food and drinking from a waterer.  They are very active and don't want to stay in the small pen we made for them.  We have them confined for their safety, the other chickens have shown signs of aggression towards the babies, trying to attack them through the chicken fencing.

All 9 keets are active and healthy.  None of them show any signs of leg problems or poopy bottoms.  The one all white keet did have an eye that was stuck closed when we brought him home on day 1, but I wiped the eye with a tissue with warm water and after a minute it was able to be opened.  The eye has been open ever since then.  We are surprised that all has gone so well for the babies so far.

Jealous and Curious

Randy sectioned off a part of the chicken coop for Bella and her babies.  It has plastic chicken fencing, so the other birds can see the babies, but they cannot get to them to hurt them.  Bella and the babies have their own feeder and waterer in their "nursery". 

All the other birds are so curious now that the babies are peeping and running around.  They all have come in and looked.  Some even stare.  A hen named Raspberry, Bella's sister, wanted to come join Bella and the babies.  The roosters all have come in to see what's going on.  It's quite a big thing here at Razzberry Corner.

And it seems many of the other hens have decided they want their own babies.  They are all sitting in nest boxes, two hens even made a nest in a corner of the chicken coop on the floor.  The one guinea hen is making nests, too.  I bet our egg count is going to go way down as the hens are all going to become broody.

Here's a video of the hens sitting in the nest boxes, and it shows Bella's nursery next door to the nest boxes.  All Bella's babies are tucked up under her when I took this video.  Zoner, who has a clutch of eggs which will hatch in 2 weeks, is sitting in the upper left nest box.  Ethel is to the right of Zoner.  Below Zoner is Charlotte, and Chloe is beside her.  Ethel, Charlotte, and Chloe do not have any eggs under them - just wishful thinking.  Everyone looks pretty hot; it's another almost 90 degree day here in MD.  We actually keep a fan going in the chicken coop all the time now.





This video shows the ladies nesting, with Brownie the rooster looking into the chicken coop too see what's going on.

Bella and the Keets ~ Day 2

Here are some videos of Bella the hen and her guinea keet babies. 

All nine baby guinea keets are doing fine. They are running around, everyone is eating chick starter feed and drinking water. They are 2 days old today.

Nine Guinea Keets!

Today we went to the farmer's market and got nine day-old guinea keets!

We were told their colors were chocolate, coral blue and one white one, straight run.  The white one is on the bottom left in the above picture.

  They were very lively when we got them, but by the time they got home they were all tuckered out and wanted to sleep.

We gave the guinea keets to the hen Bella to raise.  Bella has been broody for many months now, and has been sitting on a clutch of chicken eggs for the past week.

 

Bella had no problem accepting the guinea keets as hers.  We started by giving her one, then slowly added the rest to her nest.  They haven't left the nest box yet, everyone is sleeping.

We gave Bella's eggs to Zoner.  She tucked the additional eggs up underneath her.

Here is Zoner sitting on all the eggs now. 

Sleeping keets and proud chicken mama.

The Guinea Fowl and the Cat Food

Our Guinea fowl is very social.  He's always on our front porch waiting for us to come outside, often calling us to come give him attention. 

Guinea boy gets very excited when the outside cat, Jerry, doesn't eat all his dry food.  First he makes a racket, letting us know he found a treat.  He is very loud and his excited cry isn't very pretty - it sounds like he's dieing a slow and painful death.  If we were in the house, we used to go running to see if he was being killed by a large animal.  But now we know he's just excited to find cat food and we ignore his screams.

  

We still haven't seen any sign of the missing female guinea hen.  The second guinea hen is still with the chickens; we don't want to let her free and lose her, too.  But she has been showing great interest in the male guinea and has been ignoring her friends the roosters when the male guinea is around.  The roosters haven't been "getting busy" with her, but she believes they are her leaders, and when they cry, she comes running just like a chicken hen.  She has had a hard time turning her back on her rooster leaders and hasn't made the decision that she actually isn't a chicken, but a guinea.

Guinea hen has been seen making nests, although when she sees us watching her she appears to get embarrassed and runs away from the nest.  I wish she would just start laying again!

Two Headed Rooster

Look, it's a two-headed rooster!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not really! 

It's actually two twin roosters standing side-by-side. 

They are named Ricky and Fred. 

I can't tell them apart.