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That's a good strategy for keeping them inside until after laying-- but are they like chickens where the laying happens an hour later each day until it starts over again in early morning? Sumatras sound great if only because the roos get along-- the friendliest chicks in my current batch, I mean, they approach me and are cuddly and affectionate, I'm afraid are all males. I may have 6 males out of the 10 chicks. I find this hard to deal with, the need to get rid of roosters. I've only had chickens for 4 years and so far have never made a meal of one. Having fantasies of our current roo accepting his offspring males.
I don't have any broody hens! Never in 4 years have I had a hen go broody. If I had, I would have let her sit and hatch and not used the incubator. So I don't think I can pass off guinea keets to any hens. Besides which, we don't want the guineas to free range the same area as the chickens, we want them actually *outside* the curtilage fence instead of inside like the chickens. But I hear you, and I am worried about the guineas being mean to the chickens.
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Ok, totally taking ya'lls advice and not going to get any adults, just let the keets find their way. Wow about the ostracism! Ok tiny keets-- are you saying they can walk out of 1" poultry wire? We'll have 1/2 hardware cloth as armor on the coop in any case. Thanks for the info on square footage, rafters, and hatch rates.
Free ranging: When we lived in rural Northern California our next door neighbor had guinea fowl that had totally naturalized-- they lived in his tall trees, reproduced on their own. He gave them grain each day, but that was all. They increased their numbers. I guess I was hoping it would be possible to have that happen for us, but everyone keeps saying it's impossible. For sure we've got predators of all kinds here (Southwest Mississippi). Have not lived here long so just getting everything established.
Thanks again, everyone. Any advice anyone thinks of, please feel free!
