Keets and Chicks

(Skip the story and jump straight to the Poultry Cam!)


Yesterday, we got a call in the wee morning hours.  We quickly packed ourselves into the pick-up and drove to town through a gloomy mist.  We almost hit a family of wild turkeys and then a family of pheasants, too, but everyone survived our drive in the end.

Once in town we went straight to the post office where, with baited breath,we accepted a little peeping package.  Roy carefully opened it and was delighted to find 27 healthy (if not a little travel weary) baby birds!  
 


Back to our place we flew, once more avoiding the wild turkeys and pheasants, to deliver the birds to a warm poultry house. 


Roy carefully picked up each baby bird,dipped its beak in water till it drank and then placed it on the feed, so it will know where to find its food and water. 


The weary little things gobbled and drank their fill.  Then they calmed down and many of them took naps throughout the day.


These birds are the newest additions to our little farmstead.  There are 15 keets, which are baby guineas.  Guineas are great birds because they eat bugs and kill snakes.  Roy threw a grasshopper to the keets a little while ago and they went crazy over it!  That's good news right now because we are overrun with grasshoppers.  You can distinguish the keets by the stripes on the back of their heads.  Look here for a picture of a full grown guinea (we have the Pearl variety).

There are also seven Barred Rock chicks, five females and two males.  They are the black chicks with white spots on their heads.  The males' spot has been painted red to identify them.  Here's what the adults will look like.  Aren't they handsome?

The yellow chicks are New Hampshire Reds (see picture of adult).  There are five of them and they are all females.  

Both the Barred Rocks and the Reds will be good egg layers when they grow up- well, the hens will be.  The roosters will lead the flock, help protect them, and fertilize the eggs so that we can have more chicks in the future. 
 



Now to the exciting part!  We have a webcam watching our keets and chicks all day long!  You are invited to watch them grow up!  Just visit our Poultry Cam as often as you like.  Don't blink because they grow-up quickly!

(Currently the Poultry Cam's picture is automatically updating every 5 seconds because we don't have enough bandwidth to stream the video.  We are working to find ways to improve this!)

I'll try to keep everyone updated on the progress of our birds, so please check back frequently!

Posted by Susan at July 11, 2009
Categories: Rural Living, Poultry
Tags: barred plymouth rocks hens new hampshire reds roosters chickens keets pearl guineas chicks
 

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