Chickens, chooks, keets.

[jenncoo]

I have a very secure pen and chicken house that I have successfully housed guinea fowl and a rooster and hens. They free range during the day. Sadly one of my alpacas slid the window of their hen house open and a fox killed all my guinea fowl and some of my hens. I have Maremmas guarding all my poultry during the day. I bought new keets that I am housing separately at the moment but strangely two of my Australorpe hens gathered up all the eggs my guinea fowl hens had layed over the previous two days (scattered all over the floor) and even though they had never done it before they started sitting on them, so I let them. Now there's peeping going on....don't want to lift her in case she gets off the rest of the eggs (15 in all). My question is...do hens made successful adopted mothers for keets and what do I need to know (never raised keets before). At the moment they are all still in with all the other hens, 5 left including the two sitting hens, and my rooster who is extremely gentle. Do I need to segregate them as I feel and if so..when?

 

[R2elk]

I have a very secure pen and chicken house that I have successfully housed guinea fowl and a rooster and hens. They free range during the day. Sadly one of my alpacas slid the window of their hen house open and a fox killed all my guinea fowl and some of my hens. I have Maremmas guarding all my poultry during the day. I bought new keets that I am housing separately at the moment but strangely two of my Australorp hens gathered up all the eggs my guinea fowl hens had laid over the previous two days (scattered all over the floor) and even though they had never done it before they started sitting on them, so I let them. Now there's peeping going on....don't want to lift her in case she gets off the rest of the eggs (15 in all). My question is...do hens made successful adopted mothers for keets and what do I need to know (never raised keets before). At the moment they are all still in with all the other hens, 5 left including the two sitting hens, and my rooster who is extremely gentle. Do I need to segregate them as I feel and if so..when?

I have used broody chicken hens to hatch keets. Once the keets are hatched, I take them from the chicken and put them in a brooder. Keets that are raised by chickens get imprinted by the chickens. This causes them to lose the ability to understand that chickens are not guineas.

Everything can seem to be going very well right up to the point that the guineas start their first breeding season. Guinea habits are not the same as chicken habits and the guineas chasing each other around and attacking from behind can cause the chickens great stress.

There is also the need for a higher protein feed with its higher levels of lysine, methionine and niacin for the keets that the chickens don't need. The higher quality feed will not hurt the chickens but chicken feed can be harmful to the proper development and growth of the keets.

 

[perchie.girl]

x2 What Bob Said.... Especially the feed... And I had never thought of that whole first year deal.... with Broody raised Keets.

I am going to have to rethink my Own plans for the future....

deb

 

[jenncoo]

Thank you so much for your advice. I hadn't thought of the problems that imprinting could cause. As soon as the eggs are hatched I will separate them from the broody hen. Seems sad but obviously the smart thing to do. I wonder if I should be taking them away from the hen as they hatch? Will that stop her sitting? I actually have two young chook chickens I can "give" her after I have taken the keets. i actually have my keets on Turkey Starter (I'm in Australia) and successfully raised the last healthy little flock on that. It is a higher quality, higher protein feed.

 

[jenncoo]

Sorry, when I said I had never raised keets before I mean't straight from the egg. I raised a little flock (the ones the fox got) but they were about six weeks old.