A Late Hatch Of Keets
On September 1, 2010 we found that the last Guinea fowl hen that was sitting on eggs had 5 new keets running around her. Those keets were not there the day before – of that we are absolutely certain. We are also certain that the broody hen is still sitting on at least 7 eggs.
To the Guinea fowl hen’s credit, she built her nest in a very secure location. She dug out a nice divot under a huge boulder of sandstone that rests about 25 yards from our organic garden plot. There are about a dozen such boulders right where she is. We placed them there a couple of years ago. We call it our boulder garden – as opposed to our rock garden, which is on the south slope of our house. The Guinea fowl and the dogs love the boulder garden. Both species enjoy sitting on the boulders, and the Guinea fowl scratch all the natural grit they need from the surfaces of the giants rocks. Also, the boulders are inside the fenced acreage, which means there is no chance the keets will fall prey to predators.
Fortunately for the Guinea fowl hen and her new keets, those boulders retain heat quite well. I say this because the day the keets were born the low temperature was a brisk 53°F. The high was only 72°F. It rained most of the day, and the wind was unrelenting.
By late in the afternoon the rains had stopped and my wife and I hopped into the ATV and toured the fenced acreage. It was my wife who decided to brave the perils of the boulder garden and check on the hen – that was when she discovered the new keets. Though the hen is nestled pretty deeply under the boulder, it is possible to see her if one goes to the right spot and bends over in the tall weeds and grass that grow among the rocks. She doesn’t normally do this, but when she saw the keets she thought it would be advisable. Thinking the hen looked a bit haggard, she decided we’d take her some food and a keet waterer. This was clearly a good thing to do – if not for the keets, then for the Guinea fowl hen. She put a dish of feed down just outside the boulder’s edge and the hen ran immediately to it, gorging herself. She then took a quick drink and headed back to again sit on her nest – that was when the remaining eggs were seen. Needless to say, the hen will be getting fresh feed every day until she and her keets move out.
My wife said the keets all appeared to be healthy – as healthy as keets can be on day one. On day one, our pearl grey Guinea fowl keets are all a bit unsteady on their tiny new feet. The keets seem to wobble almost as much as they walk on the first day. Also, the new keets are sporting something more akin to fur than feathers, and on the first day it’s usually pretty unsightly. By the second day, the keets are usually running around pretty well, though over short distances. The first group of naturally born and raised keets started traveling around with the hens and males on day three. The hens walk slowly so the keets can keep up, but they cover a lot of ground – for keets, anyway.
It will be interesting to watch these new keets develop since it’s September – the beginning of colder weather here in southeastern Montana. When the keets finally come out from under their boulder cover, we’ll be sure to get some new photographs for the blog.
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Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner – A Lot!
Much to our dismay, we have had a Cooper’s Hawk start including our place on its daily food search rounds. We have no doubt that the hawk has started checking our place regularly for food because of the presence of the pearl grey Guinea fowl keets that are running around.
If you are unfamiliar with the Cooper’s Hawk, following is an excerpt taken from the Montana Field Guides website:
“Male Cooper’s Hawks are dark gray on the back with a black crown and paler neck and face. The belly is white with distinct horizontal rufous bars extending from the neck to the tail and legs. The iris of the eye is deep red and the feet are yellow. Adult females have similar markings, except they have more brown on the back and the eye color is paler. Juveniles are brown on the back with some white streaking on the belly, and the tail has a white tip and three or four dark brown bars. Cooper’s Hawks measure from 14 to 20 inches in length with wingspans of 27 to 36 inches. Females are somewhat larger than males. A medium-size diurnal raptor with rounded wings, a long brown/black banded tail (often rounded at the end), and a hooked bill; adult is mainly gray/brown above, barred rusty brown below, with strong contrast between dark crown and paler nape and back; immature is paler, with brown upperparts, dark-streaked whitish or buffy underparts, and white undertail coverts. Average length 36 to 51 centimeters, wingspan 74 to 94 centimeters; females average larger than males.”
For even more information on the Cooper’s Hawk, visit the Montana Field Guides website at: http://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_ABNKC12040.aspx.
Our Cooper’s Hawk visits the property 2-4 times per day. It always repeats the same pattern. It lands in the pine tree tops outside the fenced acreage and watches. It always lands on the eastern side of the fenced acreage – the place where the Guinea fowl keets frequently hangout. Actually, the Guinea fowl and keets frolic and forage in the tall grasses and scrub just east of the fence, while the Cooper’s Hawk sits in tree tops that range from 50-100 yards from that specific area.
Our female Akita, Bella, does not like strange animals of any type – including birds. She will charge the coop yard fence if she sees Robins picking up food off the ground. When the eagles soar overhead, she barks at them, constantly making leaps into the air. Our German Shepherd dog, Buddy, will support her activity, but not get involved. Bella is aware that the Cooper’s Hawk is in the trees, and so she heads to the east side of the fence and starts barking. The hawk, however, is too far away to be affected by her threatening gestures.
The Guinea fowl and the keets absolutely know that once inside the fenced acreage, the hawk – and all other predators – are of no concern to them. Both dogs take their responsibility of protecting the Guinea fowl very seriously, and they are quite good at it. But, of course, they cannot protect the birds when they are outside the electric fence. We’ve seen all the Guinea fowl run quickly inside the fence to be near the dogs when they are threatened.
The Cooper’s Hawk is quite quick to catch on to things, as one might expect from an experienced and proficient predator. The first time we saw the hawk eyeing the Guinea fowl keets all we had to do was drive over in the ATV and the hawk flew away. It quickly learned we were really no threat, however, and then we had to start getting out of the ATV and start waving hands and yelling. As of yesterday, that technique for scaring the hawk away has no more effect.
So far, the Cooper’s Hawk has not been able to grab any of our keets. It is clear to us, however, that tomorrow we will have to resort to new actions to scare the hawk away. Based on what we’ve seen, a scarecrow would only work for one day – maybe less. The obvious solution is to drive outside the fence closer to the hawk, but that’s quite time consuming. Tomorrow we may try a firecracker.
Flying predators, many of which are protected species, are surely the most difficult predators to cope with when raising Guinea fowl – especially keets.
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Keets Sleeping In The Coop
About 7-10 days ago, we noticed that the adult Guinea fowl were taking the new pearl grey Guinea fowl keets into the coop and the coop yard. Well, they’d been going into the coop yard for longer than that, but they had not yet started going inside the coop. There are two ways for the Guinea fowl to enter the coop. They can jump up 8″ to the cinder block step that leads to the door or they can walk up the ramp and through the smaller poultry door. We sort of figured that the reason the adults had not been taking the keets inside the coop was because they were too small to negotiate either entry point safely.
The keets did start entering the coop shortly after they were able to achieve lift with their new wings. So perhaps this supports the above theory, then too, perhaps not. What is clear is that the keets did not enter the coop until their teachers, the adult Guinea fowl hens and males – the hens do the lion’s share of the teaching, but the males do help – started putting coop entry onto the daily schedule of training events. The keets have stayed close to their adult counterparts throughout their keet times – eagerly soaking up the knowledge the older Guinea fowl have to offer.
Now there’s a new development. The past couple of nights the keets have slept inside the coop. This is somewhat unusual as the adult Guinea fowl remain outside the coop and coop yard through these nicer nights times of the year. Come winter, the Guinea fowl will know to stay inside the coop for much of the time. They want the heat of the heat lamps, and also know there will be food and unfrozen water.
Along with the keets in the coop at night, one or two adults spend the night. There’s no way to tell if the adult Guinea fowl are there to protect the keets, or to show them how to sleep in the coop, or if they just want to spend the night inside the coop.
I should also note that the night temperatures have dropped the last two nights. I guess I should not rule out that the adult Guinea fowl knew the weather was going to get colder and decided it’s time to show the keets where to sleep in warmer conditions. This is kind of a stretch, but I don’t completely rule it out.
Lastly, I think it’s interesting that all of the keets slept on the very highest roosts inside the coop. The adults were on the counter and the lower roosts.
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Team Preening – For Keets
There are three photographs of pearl grey Guinea fowl keets and adults at the end of this blog. The photographs are referred to in the text in a general fashion, so you might get more out of this if you check out the photographs first.
A few days ago I wrote a blog about “Team Preening.” In fact, I titled it Team Preening. You can read that blog by clicking here. Team preening is interesting indeed, and if you don’t want to read that blog, at least have a gander at the photos. Anyway, since I’ve already pretty much covered what goes on during team preening, I’ll skip that and move on to new information.
Team preening must be a pretty important part of the social life of Guinea fowl. I say this because the adults are actively teaching the keets how to do it – properly. By that I mean that when a keet [apparently] does something incorrect during the preening process, the adult Guinea fowl that is teaching that keet will jerk and squawk at the keet. On occasion, we’ve even seen the adult Guinea fowl give the keet a peck or two. The pecks are not that rough, but still, they seem to quickly get the attention of the offending keet.
Team preening reminds me very much of what I see monkeys do at the zoo and on documentaries. The main difference is that the Guinea fowl seem only interested in preening each others neck areas – down to where the feathers really take over the body. We have seen the odd peck or two on the body, but as a rule the one doing the preening stays on the neck area.
In the photographs below, two of the photographs show an adult teaching a keet how to preen another Guinea fowl. One of the photographs shows a keet preening another keet. We’ve noticed that the keets don’t preen each other for as long as the adults do. It’s not just that keets are that much smaller and thus faster to preen, it’s like the keets get bored with it quickly. This could, perhaps, indicate that the keets do not need another Guinea fowl to help with preening at their tender ages. Perhaps, as the Guinea fowl get older, they require more assistance to rid their neck areas of unwanted dirt, insects, mites, bad feathers, etc. Of course it could also just be that Guinea fowl keets, like human children, have shamefully short attention spans and don’t like doing the same thing for too long. As with many other Guinea fowl behaviors, we may never really know.
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Keet Wing Development Photographs
There are 4 photographs of brand new wings on several pearl grey Guinea fowl keets at the end of this blog text. I won’t really be referencing the photographs during the text, but you might want to skip ahead and take a look. I dare say these are some of the best stop action photographs of the keets that we’ve been able to capture.
I remember when I was a kid growing up. Naturally, as a male I was eager to spring up to a whopping height – and the quicker I got there, the better. Measurements didn’t mean much to me then, so I created things to “check” my growth – things that did matter to me. Like jumping up when walking through doors in the house, trying to touch the top jamb. Seeing how many of the steps leading into the house I could jump up at one time and so forth.
I think Guinea fowl keets must also have things they use to mark their growth. Surely, when their wings arrive, it must be a red letter day. And it’s amazing how fast the keets’ wings do grow. They go from tiny little ‘hairy’ bumps to feathered wings in just over 2 weeks. Only a few days after the keets get their wings, they start using them. It starts with running and flapping – which must give them a sense of being lighter. As this exercise progresses and their wings grow, the keets will eventually be able to achieve very short glides. Then longer ones, followed by the ability to actually achieve lift.
Once the keets’ wings and flight skills develop adequately, they all start seeking higher roosts: rocks, roosting bars – anything higher than the ground level – and the higher the better. They jump from the height, wings spread, sometimes flapping, and they achieve slower descents first, followed by longer flights.
If you look closely at the photographs you can see that the ratio of the keets’ wings to their bodies is pretty impressive. Big wings, little bodies = easier flying. Of course, our pearl grey Guinea fowl keets will never grow up to be great flyers like swallows or falcons. But they will learn the art of the glide – something they do extremely well. I’ve watched our adults glide distances of several hundred yards, when starting from a high vantage point.
Enjoy the photographs of the keets’ new wings – we did!
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More Keet Photographs
There are four photographs of pearl grey Guinea fowl keets at the end of this short blog. Be sure to see them before signing off!
If you thought that keet photo week would be the last time you’d see photos of keets in the blog, well, surprise! I’ll just go ahead and tell you that my wife is mesmerized by these keets, and spends quite a bit of time following them around with a camera. She took pictures of our first Guinea fowl keets, but she was nothing like she is with this batch.
Of course, with our first group of keets, she was concerned about doing the right thing for the growing birds. She spent a great deal of her keet time reading, and just generally fretting over every little thing about them. This time, since the Guinea fowl hens are doing all the heavy lifting, she is able to walk around with the sub-flocks, take photos and enjoy the unending antics of the Guinea fowl keets and adults.
I will mention that the photo with the two orange circles is showing two of the keets that have managed to get to the higher bar on the Guinea fowl jungle gym. No small feat for the keets, as they are still awkward with using their wings. If you’d like to see a description or comments on any of the photos, simply hover your cursor over them for a second or two and a small box with the text should appear.
By the way, if you follow our Guinea fowl blog, we invite you to please take a moment and register for the blog. Just click on ‘Register’ on the right hand side, then type in your username and password – that’s all it takes! Once you’ve registered, you’ll be able to add comments and ask questions. We won’t be emailing you or anything like that – we just like knowing how many folks are following the blog. Thanks!
If you haven’t watched any of our Guinea fowl videos, tune into Guinea Fowl TV at http://www.youtube.com/user/GuineaFowlTV.
