Thank you! These are my first baby birds. They are freakin adorable.
I so love the little puffin looking Guinea babies!!! Since these are your first babies, I should probably ask what you’re feeding them, and tell you that keets sometimes eat their pine shavings and die from impaction. IMHO there isn’t really any great floor surface for them; I used puppy pads last year and that ate that too, and I lost one to that! You could cover the shavings with paper towels for a few days, or just use paper towels. Paper towels are pretty safe because it’s non slippery and they can pass it better. This summer, I’m going to try wire flooring. I also add chick grit to my keet feed (unmedicated gamebird starter) to help them pass the bedding keets inevitably eat! I’d love to hear updates about how your beautiful babies are doing!!!
They are on 24% protein nonmed chick starter. Oooh now i'm worried about the pine shavings! I read as long as I got the large flake style they should be fine? I think i'll probably switch to paper towels tomorrow if you have personally had problems with them eating too much flake? Thank you so much for the advice! They'gave me a start when they were all splayed out on the ground earlier, but they were just sleepy from their trip! Too cute.
Chick starter does not have high enough levels of lysine, methionine and niacin for keets with their very high metabolism rates to properly develop. They should be on a high protein turkey or game bird starter for the first 6 to 8 weeks.
I have not put young keets (<2-4 weeks) on shavings myself because of some other people’s negative experiences. I do see people posting pics of keets on shavings and don’t usually offer my opinion on it unless asked... I would guess that they lose a small proportion to impaction. I also put chicks on paper towels for the first few days; once they understand crumble feed then I’m not so worried about chicks. I do give all hatchlings chick grit from hatch onwards, both in case they eat their bedding and because I start introducing greens (edible weeds that are 1-2 ft long and have their root ball attached) at a few days old.
They will survive even if you don't give them the proper feed.
