Our flock of pearl grey Guinea fowl hens has managed to establish and fill a secret nest with eggs. The nest is extremely well concealed in some tall weeds – the kind that have short, thick ‘sticking things.’ They’re not exactly thorns or needles, but they are very sharp and quite plentiful. The stickers don’t seem to bother the Guinea fowl hens, however.

To add to the safety and security of the nest, it is built on the side of a very steep, rocky hill. The rocks are large – the smallest is perhaps 200 pounds, the largest around 1,000 pounds. We have been placing the rocks on the hill over the years to help with drainage.

The other day we were outside at the picnic table having our morning coffee and my wife heard a call that she determined to be the call of a Guinea fowl hen just after laying an egg. Yes, my wife does speak some Guinea fowl. She left the table and started to investigate the area where she heard the call. When she saw more precisely where it was coming from she went in and got on her boots and small camera and then returned to the hill. After a bit of searching, she found the hidden Guinea fowl nest – overflowing with eggs.

My wife got the picture of the Guinea fowl hen at the nest, just after she had finished laying an egg. After that hen left, she took the photo of the eggs. Then she proceeded to try and count the eggs, which proved to be quite problematic because of their location. She counted between 45-50 Guinea fowl eggs in the nest.

Finding this Guinea fowl nest filled with eggs was quite a shock for us. We had concluded, because of the small numbers of eggs we’ve been able to collect of late, that the laying season was pretty much over. We’ve only been collecting 5-6 eggs a day lately, as opposed to 15-17 eggs every day earlier in the season. Of course, even with this newly found cache of eggs, it’s still clear that egg laying has simmered down for the year.

This nest is clearly shared by the entire flock of Guinea fowl hens. We do not expect a Guinea fowl hen to go broody on this nest. It’s too late in the year to hatch keets. We’re already concerned that the pearl grey Guinea fowl keets born on September 1^st and 2^nd will not be able to survive the winter as they will be too young. However, based on what we’ve seen the new keets doing the past few cold, windy, rainy days – our concerns might be unnescessary.

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We have an organic garden, so toxins of any kind are out of the question. Some folks around these parts have tried chickens and ducks for grasshopper control, but chickens don’t’ seem to like traveling to the garden for their meals and ducks like water (which is very scarce around here) and they are also pretty messy.

After much research, we decided to try Guinea fowl for our grasshopper problems. Guinea fowl are warm climate wild birds, this is to say that Guinea fowl originated in the warmer, drier climes of Africa. So we were originally afraid they might have trouble with the winter temperatures here, which can get down to -50°F, not including the wind chill factor. But we’d read that if a heat source is provided for them, as well as feed and unfrozen water, the Guinea fowl can endure the winters.

We are extremely pleased with the way our flock of pearl grey Guinea fowl has coped with – and all but eliminated – our grasshopper problems. Three years ago we’d see thousands of grasshoppers in the garden every day. Now, we rarely see more than one or two. We know the grasshoppers are a problem in these parts because when we go outside the range of the Guinea fowl, which is about ½ mile, the grasshoppers are as thick as ever. The Guinea fowl do eat a bit of the garden bounty, but it’s more than a fair trade. In fact, next year we’ll be planting a plot of lettuce just for the Guinea fowl – since that’s what they seem to enjoy most as a salad.

The past few days has seen a large hatch of new grasshoppers, and they are abundant, to say the least. We see the Guinea fowl chasing and eating them early in the mornings. But we’ve also noticed that we are seeing more grasshoppers than usual. Nothing really problematic, just more grasshoppers than usual since we got our Guinea fowl. We started to wonder why this is.

Upon closer investigation we realized that our Guinea fowl are much plumper than usual. We also noticed that they stop their morning foraging earlier. Lastly, we noticed that the Guinea fowl are not ranging out as far as they have in the past. These things led us to the conclusion that our Guinea fowl are, quite literally, gorged on grasshoppers. We simply don’t have enough adult Guinea fowl to eat all of the grasshoppers that are here. Thank heavens we have some Guinea fowl keets, some of which are starting to eat their share of grasshoppers, and some that are only a few weeks from enjoying that delicacy. Of course, now we are starting to discuss a second coop.

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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.

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!

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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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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.

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!

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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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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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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.

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One of the two best things about having our pearl grey Guinea fowl raise their own keets – as opposed to us incubating them, raising them in a brooder until they are a few weeks old and then introducing them to the flock – is that the Guinea fowl moms do all the teaching for us.

Teaching Guinea fowl keets some things takes a long time. The two things that top this category would be 1) coming to the coop at night and 2) coming to the sound of the cowbell. It took us many weeks and countless hours to teach our initial flock of pearl grey Guinea fowl keets these two things.

As you can see in the photos below, our Guinea fowl keets are enjoying their millet with their adult caregivers – both male and female adult Guinea fowl take care of the keets. We really appreciate the fact that the hens – and often the males – have taught the keets to go to the coop when they hear the sound of the cowbell. This saves us a lot of time and energy, and I am sure is easier on the keets.

Until a couple of days ago, the keets always came into the coop yard – which is where we always serve their millet treats – along with the adults. But just recently, we’ve noticed some of the older, larger keets running ahead of their quasi-siblings and the adults to get to the millet faster. I have to assume that this confirms that the keets have learned what to do when the cowbell rings.

To reward both the keets and the adults, we are doing a cowbell ringing and millet serving just a bit more often for a few days. We hope this reinforces the training, and also makes the Guinea fowl happy. We’ll keep up these extra treats for a week or so more.

Yup – there’s no doubt about it – the Guinea fowl hens and males are much better, faster keet instructors than we will ever be. And we greatly appreciate that!

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!

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I’m not really sure that preening is the correct word for what the Guinea fowl are doing. When I think of preening, I think of birds grooming their feathers. The activity I have observed, and am describing herein, takes place almost entirely on the Guinea fowl necks, where feathers are scarce at best. And the feathers that are there are so tiny that they appear as hair more than as feathers.

The activity that I have seen many times seems to be more aimed at ridding each other of insects. Perhaps they are looking for mites, or some other very small insects – perhaps even ticks. We don’t have a flea problem around here, and we’ve never noticed any mites on the Guinea fowl, but as small as they are, we could just be missing them. We also don’t have many ticks around here. In fact since we started keeping Guinea fowl we’ve only seen one tick.

Team preening most often involves two Guinea fowl, but I have seen a third bird get involved on rare occasions. Sex is not a factor in this activity. I’ve seen two males, two females and a male and a female participating in the ritual. The birds stand close to each other and take turns pecking carefully on the neck of their partner Guinea fowl. First one pecks, then the other. This activity lasts for anywhere from 15-30 minutes. The Guinea fowl seem to do this preening most often after community dust bathing sessions, but I’ve also seen them doing it at other times.

One of the most interesting things about team preening is that all hostilities are temporarily negated by the activity. I have never seen anything but groups of calm Guinea fowl during this preening ritual. The males do not chase or peck at each other, nor do the females. Mind you, these same birds will mix it up often while out free ranging – especially during the early mating season. But it seems there’s an unspoken, ironclad peace that surrounds this preening ritual.

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