Guinea Keets - 5.5 weeks

[Unicornlife3316]

Hey y’all - so if the 9 that hatched under my guinea hen, I have 7 left. One just stopped thriving and the other was taken by a raccoon.
Anyways, these 7 are doing fantastic. They will be 6 weeks old on Friday (June 19) and the mom is ready to run. She’s been locked in with them for 6 weeks and I’m starting to feel bad for her.

The mom is fiercely protective and seems to keep a good eye on them, but it makes me nervous to let then run so small. What do y’all think? I don’t know how far she’d take them at all or if she would keep them close for protection?

This is my first time with a hatch and my first time with wild keets so all advice appreciated!

 

[guineapeeps]

Hey y’all - so if the 9 that hatched under my guinea hen, I have 7 left. One just stopped thriving and the other was taken by a raccoon.
Anyways, these 7 are doing fantastic. They will be 6 weeks old on Friday (June 19) and the mom is ready to run. She’s been locked in with them for 6 weeks and I’m starting to feel bad for her.

The mom is fiercely protective and seems to keep a good eye on them, but it makes me nervous to let then run so small. What do y’all think? I don’t know how far she’d take them at all or if she would keep them close for protection?

This is my first time with a hatch and my first time with wild keets so all advice appreciated!

They should be ok to go out at 6 weeks. If she is still very protective of them, she will more than likely call to them to keep them near her. Also, I’m sure the keets will follow her very closely, although if they’ve never been out of the coop, they may be very skittish of everything outside. If you are worried about them wandering too far, then you could watch them for the first few days or so and only let them out for limited times at first. Just make sure that you are extra vigilant in rounding them up well before dark to make sure they’re in at night...hopefully, they are tame enough to herd back into the coop if needed.
(I would usually let my keets out with mom on dry days for limited periods at about a week old and they did ok but mine were pretty easy to manipulate and put back in the coop.)

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Hey y’all - so if the 9 that hatched under my guinea hen, I have 7 left. One just stopped thriving and the other was taken by a raccoon.
Anyways, these 7 are doing fantastic. They will be 6 weeks old on Friday (June 19) and the mom is ready to run. She’s been locked in with them for 6 weeks and I’m starting to feel bad for her.

The mom is fiercely protective and seems to keep a good eye on them, but it makes me nervous to let then run so small. What do y’all think? I don’t know how far she’d take them at all or if she would keep them close for protection?

This is my first time with a hatch and my first time with wild keets so all advice appreciated!

Wow - great job with the keets!!! My broody guinea hatched chicks are a week old and I’ll consider myself lucky if they don’t get out until 2 weeks old, so I think you’re doing so well to have kept them in so long! I’ve had two broody hatches, and both times, mom went nuts when the rest of the flock went out without her. This time, I’m keeping them all in to quarantine anyway, and the moms aren’t going nuts but are tending to the keets. I have to let them out soon though, before tempers get too short...

 

[Unicornlife3316]

Wow - great job with the keets!!! My broody guinea hatched chicks are a week old and I’ll consider myself lucky if they don’t get out until 2 weeks old, so I think you’re doing so well to have kept them in so long! I’ve had two broody hatches, and both times, mom went nuts when the rest of the flock went out without her. This time, I’m keeping them all in to quarantine anyway, and the moms aren’t going nuts but are tending to the keets. I have to let them out soon though, before tempers get too short...

She has been separated in a different pen so I didn’t have to worry about her/them getting out with the others, she’s usually really calm but gets frustrated when her flock comes around and she really wants out.
I’m thinking I’ll go ahead and let them out tomorrow, I can’t imagine keeping her cooped until they’re “big” enough to fend for themselves, that would be another 6 weeks at least and I can’t do that to her. Hopefully she brings them home to the flock each night, I have a roost already set up for them in the coop.

 

[Unicornlife3316]

They should be ok to go out at 6 weeks. If she is still very protective of them, she will more than likely call to them to keep them near her. Also, I’m sure the keets will follow her very closely, although if they’ve never been out of the coop, they may be very skittish of everything outside. If you are worried about them wandering too far, then you could watch them for the first few days or so and only let them out for limited times at first. Just make sure that you are extra vigilant in rounding them up well before dark to make sure they’re in at night...hopefully, they are tame enough to herd back into the coop if needed.
(I would usually let my keets out with mom on dry days for limited periods at about a week old and they did ok but mine were pretty easy to manipulate and put back in the coop.)

She is EXTREMELY protective of them, she still hissed at me when I go in to feed but thankfully has stopped trying to murder me. She is still hissing at the goats when they get too close LOL

The keets are not tame at all (I typically don’t tame my guineas down, I lost too many because they became too complacent being around me and then when breeding season came, the males got aggressive with me, so I don’t do that anymore) but she’s pretty good about being herded in to the coop at night, so hopefully they will just follow her lead. I have a roost set up for them in the permanent coop, so we will see how it goes. I’ll probably do it this weekend, when I have help around to keep an eye on things. We’re in Texas so it’s very hot and very dry right now with no chances of rain in the next 2 weeks. It’s drought time in Texas!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

She is EXTREMELY protective of them, she still hissed at me when I go in to feed but thankfully has stopped trying to murder me. She is still hissing at the goats when they get too close LOL

The keets are not tame at all (I typically don’t tame my guineas down, I lost too many because they became too complacent being around me and then when breeding season came, the males got aggressive with me, so I don’t do that anymore) but she’s pretty good about being herded in to the coop at night, so hopefully they will just follow her lead. I have a roost set up for them in the permanent coop, so we will see how it goes. I’ll probably do it this weekend, when I have help around to keep an eye on things. We’re in Texas so it’s very hot and very dry right now with no chances of rain in the next 2 weeks. It’s drought time in Texas!

Best of luck - would love to hear how they do!

 

[Unicornlife3316]

Best of luck - would love to hear how they do!

I’ll update when they go out this weekend!

 

[Unicornlife3316]

UPDATE: 6/22/20

So I’ve allowed all 7 out to roam with mom. Her mate and the other female are not super friendly with the keets. It stresses me out and I don’t know if I should wait till the babies are a little bigger. It’s really easy for mom to get separated from the keets when the adults chase them.

advice appreciated

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

UPDATE: 6/22/20

So I’ve allowed all 7 out to roam with mom. Her mate and the other female are not super friendly with the keets. It stresses me out and I don’t know if I should wait till the babies are a little bigger. It’s really easy for mom to get separated from the keets when the adults chase them.

advice appreciated

Oh my! I wouldn’t have anticipated that. I’m also still trying to figure out how to best brood keets to make integration easier. I have a terribly feisty chicken flock, and having hen brooded chicks introduced to the flock has helped decrease stress so much. I’ve been working towards the same for the guineas but they are so challenging! I can only relate my experiences with the two different species: For the chicks, we separate broody hen and chicks in what is essentially a “look but don’t touch” area for the first 1-2 weeks. Then we close off our split run so hen and chicks can mingle more with the flock protected by wire for another 1-2 weeks, then we let them all mingle. Even with subordinate broody hens, this has worked well. For the guineas: we’ve now had three hatches within our coop nests. For the first, moms killed all the hatching keets. Disaster :-( Second hatch: only one egg (I took the others as I didn’t want to see multiple keets killed again!) hatched and other adults kind of eyeballed it oddly like they weren’t sure they would allow it there. However, they did not attack. Moms didn’t really defend it from other adults giving it the stink eye. Moms abandoned after three days, ending that experiment. Third hatch with keets now 2 weeks old: Two newly broody hens stole keets from the hen that patiently hatched them. These two hens (one very dominant) would only let select adults near the recently hatched keets and were very defensive. I observed many antagonist acts from the adults, though I guess they weren’t as awful as it looked as keets survived without apparent damage. As the keets became more mobile, moms became less defensive and keets had more and more adults to interact with. Now other adults just ignore keets, even under challenging circumstances like mealworm feeding.

My take on all of this is that my incubator hatched guineas had no idea what a keet was or that they should be emerging from eggs and defended. My lone broody hatched keet is the first adult to successfully hatch eggs and brood keets, though she did very reluctantly leave them to the keet stealing hens. It took a couple tries and maybe the right bird to recognize keets as new flock members. I do think that mine are getting better with practice.

For you, I’m wondering if your situation is more like our broody chickens, where the other adults have to take on new flock members as an extension of the hen. Is there some way that you can set mom and keets up where they have a “look don’t touch” setup in your guinea coop or run?

 

[Unicornlife3316]

Oh my! I wouldn’t have anticipated that. I’m also still trying to figure out how to best brood keets to make integration easier. I have a terribly feisty chicken flock, and having hen brooded chicks introduced to the flock has helped decrease stress so much. I’ve been working towards the same for the guineas but they are so challenging! I can only relate my experiences with the two different species: For the chicks, we separate broody hen and chicks in what is essentially a “look but don’t touch” area for the first 1-2 weeks. Then we close off our split run so hen and chicks can mingle more with the flock protected by wire for another 1-2 weeks, then we let them all mingle. Even with subordinate broody hens, this has worked well. For the guineas: we’ve now had three hatches within our coop nests. For the first, moms killed all the hatching keets. Disaster :-( Second hatch: only one egg (I took the others as I didn’t want to see multiple keets killed again!) hatched and other adults kind of eyeballed it oddly like they weren’t sure they would allow it there. However, they did not attack. Moms didn’t really defend it from other adults giving it the stink eye. Moms abandoned after three days, ending that experiment. Third hatch with keets now 2 weeks old: Two newly broody hens stole keets from the hen that patiently hatched them. These two hens (one very dominant) would only let select adults near the recently hatched keets and were very defensive. I observed many antagonist acts from the adults, though I guess they weren’t as awful as it looked as keets survived without apparent damage. As the keets became more mobile, moms became less defensive and keets had more and more adults to interact with. Now other adults just ignore keets, even under challenging circumstances like mealworm feeding.

My take on all of this is that my incubator hatched guineas had no idea what a keet was or that they should be emerging from eggs and defended. My lone broody hatched keet is the first adult to successfully hatch eggs and brood keets, though she did very reluctantly leave them to the keet stealing hens. It took a couple tries and maybe the right bird to recognize keets as new flock members. I do think that mine are getting better with practice.

For you, I’m wondering if your situation is more like our broody chickens, where the other adults have to take on new flock members as an extension of the hen. Is there some way that you can set mom and keets up where they have a “look don’t touch” setup in your guinea coop or run?

So I just went out to check everybody, mom has managed to keep all 7 with her and everybody looks good so far.

So I also have 21 chickens, 13 pullets who the guinea mom would NOT let around her babies, then my 8 older girls that for some reason the mom didn’t care if they came near or not. She also doesn’t care if the other members of the guinea gang come around the babies.
Her and keets have always been in a see-no touch situation. They’ve been penned in the goat barn for the first 5 weeks after birth where all guineas and chickens can see them/hear them. Then for the last week or so, they’ve been in the divided coop within my main coop, so everybody should be aware of their existence!

Honestly, I think I’m just going to let them figure it out ::