We have babies!

[Sydney65]

3 month update! All juveniles are doing well. Lil Bit is filling out and catching up with its siblings, which eases my mind! That’s LB there in the front. LB is still a little lighter colored than the violets, but nowhere near as light pinkish colored as I’ve seen in pictures of pastels…
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The rest of the keets still get deferential treatment and guarding from the adults, at least by day… Sometimes they group together, like here where 8 of the 10 keets are being watched by Scout Orange. The white in the front is Dot, and the White in the back is Monroe, named by @Sydney65. Surplice the pinto RP has her beak open proclaiming that she’s a girl and must buckwheat call!
View attachment 2921693

I’m still not quite sure what color Cinnamon is. Here’s a pic of her alone:
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And standing tall in the back next to her clutchmates, with a royal purple just to the left of her and a violet in front, with adult lavender Ghost between me and the keets:
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Other fun pics are of Welch with Monroe and Starla in the future run, which I haven’t had time to work on:
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And one of a likely boy, violet juvenile Merlot:
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We’ve had a long, warm and very dry fall, but it’s suddenly gotten cold with a low of 23 F tonight, so wish the birds luck!

Ugh, I know, 23° and it was snowing earlier. Have to start my annual mantra that "cold is good,cold is normal,cold kills bugs, we want cold.."
Mama Rose wasn't impressed, either. She'll come out for mb 10 min then hightails it back to the coop.
Looking at GF pic to compare to pic I found of Lil Bit under red heat lamp, mb blonde? I still think Bronze for Cinnamon. Surplice is gorgeous.
You truly have stunning birds. The older gran stayed home from school yesterday; his consolation was sitting on my lap looking at your last set of keet pics. You rated anywhere from "oooh" to "WOW!!!". From there it got awkward, bc I had referred to them as "a friend's birds," and he wanted to know,"how do YOU have FRIENDS?"
Numi's head outgrew the feeder I had made,which is hilarious considering she used to go inside of it. So I made a new one & set old one on trash can to clean. Himself huffed & puffed when he saw it in trash,& said if I was throwing it away, that meant no more keets. I assured him I was going to clean & put it away, which he approved of,reiterating that if I threw it away that meant no more keets. - - aaand that's when he learned there'd be 20 arriving next spring.
Thankfully Numi still manages to control that sphincter, bc she hates the diaper. She went to sleep in my lap today while I "brushed" her with a baby toothbrush. I don't remember where I got that idea, but she loves it. I thought it might help w/the dander and down. Right now her neck,belly & patches above the wings are bare.

 

[R2elk]

Ugh, I know, 23°

Yesterday morning it was 2°F here.

 

[Sydney65]

Yesterday morning it was 2°F here.

Yesterday morning I was still in shorts, and it's to be in the 60's on Friday. It's not so much that I mind the cold, but it'd be nice to be able to adjust to it.

 

[R2elk]

Yesterday morning I was still in shorts, and it's to be in the 60's on Friday. It's not so much that I mind the cold, but it'd be nice to be able to adjust to it.

The temperature is all over the place here. Later yesterday a Chinook blew in and the temperature went up to 41°F. Last night got down to 17°F and up to 47°F today.

The low on the 1st was 46°F with a high of 61°F.

 

[Sydney65]

Our kids roll their eyes in disbelief when we talk abt the snow we used to get. The most they've ever experienced is 3' drifts, so when I tell them abt snowdrifts to the top of the patio door or show them this, they're like "yeah, rigghhht."

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Ugh, I know, 23° and it was snowing earlier. Have to start my annual mantra that "cold is good,cold is normal,cold kills bugs, we want cold.."
Mama Rose wasn't impressed, either. She'll come out for mb 10 min then hightails it back to the coop.
Looking at GF pic to compare to pic I found of Lil Bit under red heat lamp, mb blonde? I still think Bronze for Cinnamon. Surplice is gorgeous.
You truly have stunning birds. The older gran stayed home from school yesterday; his consolation was sitting on my lap looking at your last set of keet pics. You rated anywhere from "oooh" to "WOW!!!". From there it got awkward, bc I had referred to them as "a friend's birds," and he wanted to know,"how do YOU have FRIENDS?"
Numi's head outgrew the feeder I had made,which is hilarious considering she used to go inside of it. So I made a new one & set old one on trash can to clean. Himself huffed & puffed when he saw it in trash,& said if I was throwing it away, that meant no more keets. I assured him I was going to clean & put it away, which he approved of,reiterating that if I threw it away that meant no more keets. - - aaand that's when he learned there'd be 20 arriving next spring.
Thankfully Numi still manages to control that sphincter, bc she hates the diaper. She went to sleep in my lap today while I "brushed" her with a baby toothbrush. I don't remember where I got that idea, but she loves it. I thought it might help w/the dander and down. Right now her neck,belly & patches above the wings are bare.

Same here! Monday was so warm I let my sick duck out on the pond for a few hours! Then it got cold fast! I said we’ve been droughty? Well apparently we are under some kind of crazy fire risk on Friday; I didn’t even know that there was a step beyond “extreme”! I am SO grateful that we burned most of the property in early fall, so there’s not much fuel to support a wildfire right now…

Re: Cinnamon, from what I’ve seen, bronze has a very dark base color and looks more like RP until their adult feathers come in…

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-to-tell-bronze-from-royal-purple-guinea-keets.556786/

Cinnamon was foxy red as a young keet and still seems predominantly brown without purple or black feathers. I’m going to wait another month then post pics of Cinnamon and Lil Bit on the guinea fowl genetics group I belong to and see what they say.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Our kids roll their eyes in disbelief when we talk abt the snow we used to get. The most they've ever experienced is 3' drifts, so when I tell them abt snowdrifts to the top of the patio door or show them this, they're like "yeah, rigghhht."View attachment 2921905

That’s some serious snow! I don’t like the cold myself - I grew up in Florida and am the biggest wimp!

 

[Sydney65]

That’s some serious snow! I don’t like the cold myself - I grew up in Florida and am the biggest wimp!

Lol that was actually from the blizzard of 78, so certainly not the norm. But when they call snow days now, Himself & I still look at each other & laugh. But like you, I was taking Numi out for short trips recently, but not now. I wanted to give her a chance to go out & fly, but she won't get off of me now.
What coloring is Welch? Slate and pewter are foxy as keets, but Cinnamon looks too dark for either. Hopefully in the future we'll be pros at determining. I've asked for violet,bronze, pewter, pastel, blonde, chocolate, coral blue,buff and slate, Hopefully will be able to time line their growth rather than trying to compare only hatchlings and adults.
I just received the Genetics & Breeding book. Haven't opened it yet but hopefully will stick in my brain better than trying to remember snippets from threads here. I had resisted getting; I usually get digital, but they wanted $190 for a digital copy of a $30 book.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Lol that was actually from the blizzard of 78, so certainly not the norm. But when they call snow days now, Himself & I still look at each other & laugh. But like you, I was taking Numi out for short trips recently, but not now. I wanted to give her a chance to go out & fly, but she won't get off of me now.
What coloring is Welch? Slate and pewter are foxy as keets, but Cinnamon looks too dark for either. Hopefully in the future we'll be pros at determining. I've asked for violet,bronze, pewter, pastel, blonde, chocolate, coral blue,buff and slate, Hopefully will be able to time line their growth rather than trying to compare only hatchlings and adults.
I just received the Genetics & Breeding book. Haven't opened it yet but hopefully will stick in my brain better than trying to remember snippets from threads here. I had resisted getting; I usually get digital, but they wanted $190 for a digital copy of a $30 book.

What’s the genetics and breeding book?

 

[Sydney65]

What’s the genetics and breeding book?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P8VXFNR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
"The resistance to common chicken disease in guinea fowl makes it an ideal model for studying the mechanism of disease resistance through functional and comparative genomic studies.

In present book, we have tried to give some fundamentals of genetics and breeding and discussed the various aspects of genetics including cytogenetics, immunogenetics and molecular genetics. The inheritance of certain qualitative and quantitative traits have also been covered."