4 Week Old Keet Survives Alone Outdoors For Entire Night- 30 degrees!

[907poultry]

I live in a warmer part of Alaska currently, it is May and the temps only drop to 30 degrees at night.
I’ve read that guinefowl keets should be kept at 80 degrees at 4 weeks old, but have allowed many 3 week olds to go outdoors on hot spring days (45 degree weather), with no ill results.
The “littles” (my new crew) were outside in there pen, and my dog (who is well behaved around waterfowl and turkeys but does not do as well with guineas, pheasants, and quail) broke into there pen and grabbed a keet. I forgot to install the clips to keep the X pen closed, an awful mistake on my part. Well, I went outside and found that she had ran the keet off into the woods or (presumably) eaten him. I looked around porches, tree trunks, brush etc. but In a large space had no luck. In several hours there were no peeps and said keet would not return to his flock mates.
Without any luck, I brought the other littles inside and excepted my loss.

In the morning I did my round and found no keet, I cleaned and moved hay around until my dog chased the missing keet under the front porch- the thing survived outside, in what should have been deadly cold, alone, for the entire night and into the day. No food, no water, no heat. It could not have gotten In with the big birds because they were locked in their house.

Keets (in my experience) have proven time and time again more hardy than expected.

Has anyone else made a stupid mistake with keets? Have they proved more hardy than media portrays them? Lovable, Loud, little buggers, and joys to have around- unless you have neighbors.

 

[907poultry]

The Keet has been well and was only hungry, he has been right back to running about and is probably telling his friends about his excersion.

 

[R2elk]

I live in a warmer part of Alaska currently, it is May and the temps only drop to 30 degrees at night.
I’ve read that guinefowl keets should be kept at 80 degrees at 4 weeks old, but have allowed many 3 week olds to go outdoors on hot spring days (45 degree weather), with no ill results.
The “littles” (my new crew) were outside in there pen, and my dog (who is well behaved around waterfowl and turkeys but does not do as well with guineas, pheasants, and quail) broke into there pen and grabbed a keet. I forgot to install the clips to keep the X pen closed, an awful mistake on my part. Well, I went outside and found that she had ran the keet off into the woods or (presumably) eaten him. I looked around porches, tree trunks, brush etc. but In a large space had no luck. In several hours there were no peeps and said keet would not return to his flock mates.
Without any luck, I brought the other littles inside and excepted my loss.

In the morning I did my round and found no keet, I cleaned and moved hay around until my dog chased the missing keet under the front porch- the thing survived outside, in what should have been deadly cold, alone, for the entire night and into the day. No food, no water, no heat. It could not have gotten In with the big birds because they were locked in their house.

Keets (in my experience) have proven time and time again more hardy than expected.

Has anyone else made a stupid mistake with keets? Have they proved more hardy than media portrays them? Lovable, Loud, little buggers, and joys to have around- unless you have neighbors.

By the time keets are 4 weeks old, they should be fully feathered. If your keet found a protected place where it could snuggle in, I would have expected it to survive.

By the time my keets are 4 weeks old, they are off of supplemental heat. I do start mine at 90°F when they are a day old.

 

[907poultry]

By the time keets are 4 weeks old, they should be fully feathered. If your keet found a protected place where it could snuggle in, I would have expected it to survive.

By the time my keets are 4 weeks old, they are off of supplemental heat. I do start mine at 90°F when they are a day old.

Yes, I have had people tell me to keep them at 75-80 degrees (Fahrenheit) at this age and to be very careful with cold and chilling, but it gets up into the 50s and they are fine (I do take them indoors for the night when it goes back under 40 to be safe, but other than that they are outside all day.

 

[R2elk]

Yes, I have had people tell me to keep them at 75-80 degrees (Fahrenheit) at this age and to be very careful with cold and chilling, but it gets up into the 50s and they are fine (I do take them indoors for the night when it goes back under 40 to be safe, but other than that they are outside all day.

Mine even as adults spend every night in their secure coop. If I didn't shut them in at night, I would eventually lose all of them to predators.

 

[907poultry]

Mine even as adults spend every night in their secure coop. If I didn't shut them in at night, I would eventually lose all of them to predators.

I wouldn’t doubt it, somehow they seem to dodge everything that flies their way; dogs, moose, people, geese, turkeys

 

[Sydney65]

I wouldn’t doubt it, somehow they seem to dodge everything that flies their way; dogs, moose, people, geese, turkeys

Next time, lock the dog up, wait a few minutes to let things calm down,then grab one of your louder keets and walk around with it. It's calling will help coax the wanderer back. That's how I managed to find the ones I did find last year. Another trick is to record them all calling and walk around w/it playing loudly.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

I live in a warmer part of Alaska currently, it is May and the temps only drop to 30 degrees at night.
I’ve read that guinefowl keets should be kept at 80 degrees at 4 weeks old, but have allowed many 3 week olds to go outdoors on hot spring days (45 degree weather), with no ill results.
The “littles” (my new crew) were outside in there pen, and my dog (who is well behaved around waterfowl and turkeys but does not do as well with guineas, pheasants, and quail) broke into there pen and grabbed a keet. I forgot to install the clips to keep the X pen closed, an awful mistake on my part. Well, I went outside and found that she had ran the keet off into the woods or (presumably) eaten him. I looked around porches, tree trunks, brush etc. but In a large space had no luck. In several hours there were no peeps and said keet would not return to his flock mates.
Without any luck, I brought the other littles inside and excepted my loss.

In the morning I did my round and found no keet, I cleaned and moved hay around until my dog chased the missing keet under the front porch- the thing survived outside, in what should have been deadly cold, alone, for the entire night and into the day. No food, no water, no heat. It could not have gotten In with the big birds because they were locked in their house.

Keets (in my experience) have proven time and time again more hardy than expected.

Has anyone else made a stupid mistake with keets? Have they proved more hardy than media portrays them? Lovable, Loud, little buggers, and joys to have around- unless you have neighbors.

I had something kind of similar… A few years ago I let two Guinea hens hatch a small nest, and they ended up with a solo keet. I don’t know if a single keet wasn’t enough to stimulate a good maternal response from them or if they were just inherently poor moms, but they were very lackadaisical. They had the keet out of the coop and in the run when it was only 2 days old. At roost time, I found both hens on the nest in the coop, so I assumed the keet was under them and locked all birds in the coop for the night. In the morning, I went out to check on them and found the keet loose in the run! A 2 day old keet had spent the night with 65F low temps all by itself but still seemed vigorous. That keet got one more day with the flock but moms decided to abandon the keet altogether that night, so it was brooded indoors and did well until it was old enough to be reintroduced to the flock.