P.S. I figured out how to do it! Yay for me. So now you can officially meet "The Girls".
The top pic is them at 3 days old. The ones following this post are them at 10 wks.
Good evening! I had big plans to post pictures of my Guinea Girls tonight, but alas, I can't seem to find the icon that allows me to post pictures! This blogging is truly God's way of testing my patience! I'll tell you about them, and maybe later I'll find the picture posting thing. :)
Anyway, had a good day resting my hips up - until I ran the vacuum! Did finish painting 1 drawer and 1 cupboard door which will be ready for the new hardware tomorrow. It's getting quite windy and stormy outside right now; big black clouds hanging down and thunder rolling. Gotta go find my girls. Will continue in a bit. That was quick -- my husband had already put them in the coop. He said they went right in when it started thundering! Smart girls.
I'd been itching to have some kind of "critters" on the place, and since the fences have not been mended I settled for Guineas instead of a goat. Ronnie (husband) transformed a flatbed type trailer into a coop for me (well for the keets) with tin roof and chicken wire sides and a nice gate. I found a place on line to order the keets (that's what baby guineas are called) and so I did - 8 of them. The day they were born - in Texas - they were put in a box and mailed to me. On the 3rd day I went to the post office and picked them up. Ronnie held the box on the way home and peeked inside. He said "there are more than 8 chicks in here". I said there couldn't be cause that's all I ordered. When we got them home and opened the box, there were 8 keets and 6 rooster chicks. The invoice said the chicks were to help keep the keets warm during shipping!
So began my life as a keet farmer. I had bought an old fashioned galvanized wash tub to put them in; and the only place to put it where they would be warm was here in the computer room! So for about 5 weeks they were in the house. Then one day the smell just got to me and I asked Ronnie how quickly he could build that coop! Out they went on the front porch in their tub and by evening they were in the coop with a big warming light shining on them. It worked just fine, and still does. I did lose 2 of the keets though. I'm not sure what happened to them, but one died in side here and one later in the coop. Maybe they were just sickly or something. I also lost a rooster, but that was by a predator of some kind, because in the morning we found a hole in the chicken wire on the gate. Amazing that whatever it was only took a rooster, but I am thankful for that. Now the Border Collie - Patch - is outside 24/7 guarding the girls. They are 10 weeks old now and doing well.
I did give 4 of the rooster chicks to my friend's grandson since I couldn't imagine having 6 roosters running around crowing!! So now I only have 1 rooster and he thinks he's a guinea. He's so funny to watch; the girls take off in a low fly and he runs like crazy to follow them. My reason for getting Guineas is they supposedly eat lots of ticks, grasshoppers, and all kinds of other bugs, help keep snakes away and are like watch dogs with their chatter when some one or something strange comes into the yard. And of course, they are very entertaining.
My girls are French Guineas and are really getting pretty. Their body feathers are black and white and their faces are bright blue with some red wattles or whatever they call it. Very colorful. Hopefully you will be able to see some of that if I get the pics up! I started naming them and couldn't keep them apart, so now 3 are called Marie and 3 Antoinette! Or.....
My Guinea Girls.
Raising the keets was time consuming, but they say if you don't raise them from babies they won't stick around your place. If you get them from someone else when they are grown, they will try and make their way back to where they came from - whether they find it or not!
So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. If you need some entertainment, get some Guineas.
That's it for now; take care and God Bless.
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