3 keets and 1 buff orp... will she have issues?

[farmergal]

Yesterday I went to a local craigslister who'd just gotten a big shipment in from Sand Hill. I went there to get 3 guinea keets, and couldn't resist coming home with a little Buff Orp baby who just wouldn't hop off my hand when I picked her up. My question is: was this a mistake? The lady thought that chicks and keets can be raised together, but the keets seem to be pretty different behaviorally (keets are so much more skittish!) and now I'm worried that the little BO might grow up thinking that she's a guinea. I don't want to raise a chicken with "issues"... lol. Can't afford the therapy bills

Does anyone have any experience with this? Do I need to go back and get another BO? (To the dismay of my SO, who graciously drove me to get yet more birds and swore that was the last of the season's babies?)

Thanks much!

 

[chickenlisa]

I can't answer that question, as I've got the same one. I hatched 1 chicken with 20 guineas- (there was a mistaken chicken egg in with the guinea eggs) and they are all now about 2-3 weeks old. I forget exactly how old they are at this point, but they're all in the same brooder box, and the chick is the calmer one still. It'll come over to the feeder when I'm refilling it, while the keets are flipping out going crazy. I'm hoping it stays calmer, and maybe even helps the keets to start trusting us. We try to hold them each day, but with only 3 blues, and the rest pearls, we're never sure if we got to hold all the pearls at least once, or some of them twice and some of them not at all. The 3 blues are being held for sure, and hopefully will calm down soon.
Good luck, I hope our chicks will both be good calm chickens someday.
Lisa

 

[jhm47]

It was my experience when raising keets with chicks that the keets picked the growing feathers out of my chicks. Since I am involved in showing, that did not work well. When they got a little bigger, the keets even killed several of the chicks by picking their vents till they bled to death. I quickly got rid of the guineas to a neighbor who had no chickens. Just my experience, and I have not had guineas since. They are nice watchdogs, and eat lots of bugs, but I just haven't liked them since.

 

[farmergal]

Yikes! That makes me want to race back and get another chick to keep the new BO company and make sure she doesn't get picked on. Does anybody else have any experience?