Raising keets & chicks with no electric, need advice

[R2elk]

I use sand in my brooder for all whether they be chicks, keets or poults.

I have no issues with any of them eating the sand. With the keets and poults in particular the ability to sprinkle the starter feed on top of the sand makes it very easy to get them to start eating.

Their instinct is to pick feed up off of the ground.

 

[Backroadlogic]

We use warm water bottles changed out regularly. This works well for small groups. I have used leaves from the woods or just dried standing grass many many times.

 

[C Siena]

I use sand in my brooder for all whether they be chicks, keets or poults.

I have no issues with any of them eating the sand. With the keets and poults in particular the ability to sprinkle the starter feed on top of the sand makes it very easy to get them to start eating.

Their instinct is to pick feed up off of the ground.

Though I have not used sand for chicks, but I have always put feed on the bottom (not container) and day 2 they are all pecking away. The broody hen, for the first 2 clutches, would peck the ground, so I thought to do the same, tapping. I guess the broody taught me.

 

[Sydney65]

The story is great, thank you.

The dusty shavings are not great, coarse wood chips are fine. I use hay a lot because I can get it free, but it does get stinky quick since poop just sits on top. They wouldn't need grit until they're eating bugs and stuff outside, and they'll get it just being outside anyway. I've used sand a couple times and never liked it at all. Besides them eating it, it sticks to the poop on their feet like crazy and gets caked on in hard little balls you have to constantly pick off. I love my guineas, but they're the dumbest birds I've ever had. And I've had a lot. When I go outside my hen just comes up to me and pecks my boots. Nonstop until I move. She's like obsessed. I don't know if she just likes the sound or if she really thinks eventually she'll be able to eat them, but just really not smart. If I took my boot off and sat it in the yard she would stand their and peck it all day. She can't figure out how to get out of the run because I sit the water bucket in the doorway, if I don't move it she'll pace all day and never figure out how to leave the run by just going around it. So if they can eat sand and eat enough to impact their crop and die, they 100% will. You have to completely baby proof everything. I always joke they love to die. It's their life's mission. I've raised many keets and even if it's the safest brooder in the world you'll still lose some. One gets a little damp, dead. Gets bullied away from the feed, dead. Too chilly, dead. Too hot, dead. Etc. etc. etc.

Edited to add -

It's not that she CAN'T get out, it's that you've disturbed her environment by putting the bucket where it doesn't belong. Guinea do not like change & proceed with caution. Think abt it; if a strange package were unexpectedly left on your porch with no markings, would you use caution, examine it, or just rip it open without suspicion? Heck, my neighbor sees someone walking down the road, she locks herself inside, calls me, asking if "we" should call the sheriff. (I have to remind her that "we" don't own the road.)
I just finished spring cleaning out there, Buckets, brooms,the power washer,the hose- anything that was left in their pathway was suspect and avoided, making that pathway unusable as far as they were concerned. Likewise, though they eventually adapt and actually enjoy some things, like a fresh pile of hemp or freshly tilled sand, they will circle it for a long time before spreading the hemp out or scratching in the sand, bc it wasn't there when they went outside, so how did it get there? Mud puddles? Forget abt it.
I'm convinced keet feet stick to everything. Paper towel and puppy pads they love to shred. I bought a partial bolt of clearanced heavy weight fleece that I cut into pieces to fit the brooder that I soak and wash. For the early days, that worked well. Now, I had an extended stay one year, and I will attest that this won't go well when keets are older. But for the early stages when droppings are small & everything goes in their mouth, it's a good alternative.
As for the death rate, I learned the hard way when starting out that though probably the most resilient as adults, keets are by far more fragile than other birds. That's how I ended up in this group. A starling has her nest in the bottom of my potting bench. Her eggs/chicks have been through torrential downpours, low temps, hot sun, high wind-and are flourishing. I think they & she are almost getting used to me being around. Just one of those things would doom a keet.
None-the-less, I have to take up for my tiny dinosaurs when ppl question their intelligence. I've lived here for most of my life & had seen mb 3 snakes? They've alerted me to more than that in the past week before I stepped on them. Their parenting skills are often questioned, but I've watched a communal effort to protect and care for keets that some humans could learn from, even by older keets. Though not as docile as I hear chickens are, partnerships can be formed with them. One lady takes hers to school on a leash to visit school kids, and he tolerates the petting, cooing, fast movements and squeals as well as any therapy dog.
This is not intended to be a lecture, merely a different perspective. They've yet to fail to fascinate me.

 

[Poppycocks]

This post is a few months late, but I suspect the keets are fine. Last year in April somebody gave me a baker’s dozen one-week-old guinea keets without telling me much about them at all, and from reading a few guinea keet posts, I believe what I was told was wrong. I was told to feed them cheap chicken food and just keep them in a cardboard box outside. I did feed what I was told, but my greenhouse was empty; so I threw some hay on the floor (to protect my greenhouse), stuck them in there, and they did fine. No heat. Just the greenhouse which is under shady trees. They soon flew up the shelves as they learned to fly and eventually made it to the top.

After a few months, we built a coop, but they soon wanted out of it; so I let them out. They run wild all over the place. Here. At the neighbors. Everywhere. None died. Everybody claims to love them as they are great exterminators. They do come home at night to sleep and perch on the deck railing.

I have yet to see a single scorpion this year due to the guineas eating them. Nor have we seen grasshoppers. I still put food out for them, but they rarely eat it. Bugs are just too abundant for them to mess with chicken food. There are so many lovely things found in and on the ground!

They were unhappy in the winter when I filled my greenhouse with plants and kept the door shut, but Spring came and they were thrilled. They still like to visit the greenhouse and fly to the top shelf and sometimes spend the night there instead of the deck railing.

In my experience, which is NOT vast, guineas are the easiest creatures there are to raise. Pretty much fool proof imo. And if there is a way to screw it up, I always find it. If mine survived me and my lack of knowledge, your friend’s guineas should have done fine with a wood stove in the room for warmth. Definitely more than mine had.

 

[R2elk]

This post is a few months late, but I suspect the keets are fine. Last year in April somebody gave me a baker’s dozen one-week-old guinea keets without telling me much about them at all, and from reading a few guinea keet posts, I believe what I was told was wrong. I was told to feed them cheap chicken food and just keep them in a cardboard box outside. I did feed what I was told, but my greenhouse was empty; so I threw some hay on the floor (to protect my greenhouse), stuck them in there, and they did fine. No heat. Just the greenhouse which is under shady trees. They soon flew up the shelves as they learned to fly and eventually made it to the top.

After a few months, we built a coop, but they soon wanted out of it; so I let them out. They run wild all over the place. Here. At the neighbors. Everywhere. None died. Everybody claims to love them as they are great exterminators. They do come home at night to sleep and perch on the deck railing.

I have yet to see a single scorpion this year due to the guineas eating them. Nor have we seen grasshoppers. I still put food out for them, but they rarely eat it. Bugs are just too abundant for them to mess with chicken food. There are so many lovely things found in and on the ground!

They were unhappy in the winter when I filled my greenhouse with plants and kept the door shut, but Spring came and they were thrilled. They still like to visit the greenhouse and fly to the top shelf and sometimes spend the night there instead of the deck railing.

In my experience, which is NOT vast, guineas are the easiest creatures there are to raise. Pretty much fool proof imo. And if there is a way to screw it up, I always find it. If mine survived me and my lack of knowledge, your friend’s guineas should have done fine with a wood stove in the room for warmth. Definitely more than mine had.

You got really lucky.

 

[Poppycocks]

R2elk: I’m planning to get some more keets and plan to raise them next to my chickens as opposed to allowing these to run wild. We have a much larger coop for them with a large, high run now, incubators, and brooders. I’m hopeful that this batch will accept being somewhat penned as I have yet to see an egg in nearly a year and a half nor any babies. I’d like to hatch some keets myself and intend to give it a try if I can make it work and keep the guineas happy.

I intend to do it the correct way this time and not as I was told to do before; thus the reason I stumbled upon this thread.

 

[Finnie]

@C Siena how did things turn out with the keets and your friend?

 

[C Siena]

@C Siena how did things turn out with the keets and your friend?

The one keet and one bantam chick are doing well. They had another incubate a dozen+ more eggs, later in the spring. 6 hatched, 1 with splay legs. I tried to help them with it as we did the one we had, but they didn't spend the time needed and it died.
Here is the keet and chick, who are 5 weeks old in this picture. I'm not sure if the comb on the young chick means cockerel.

 

[C Siena]

@Gill-b how does one determine the sex of a keet? The neighbor asked and I have no idea.