Friday, July 25, 2014

I may have been

Irritated to say the least with the hen the other day when she kicked all the poor guinea keets out of the nest. I had been making sure to check under her fluffy butt a couple times a day just to make sure no one else was in danger of her deranged ways. 

New guinea keet

Well yesterday evening I'd decided I wasn't going to check again until night coop lock up. However, some little voice in my head kept saying, you really ought to get out there and take a look. That voice was very wise. Another lovely keet, pied in color, and a gorgeous blue and yellow Cochin-EE cross chick had hatched and were peeping away all fluffed out and happy underneath her. Needless to say I opted not to take any chances this time around and promptly scooped their sweet selves up to the relative safety of the brooder we built for the others. I'm not saying the brooder is without its dangers. We have a plethora of varmints of various sizes which could tear into or tip over their little home and make a very short meal of my babies. That is sadly a risk every poultry or livestock owner takes.

Turkey poult number one

Turkey poult number two

Later when I went to check on the bird and her remaining half dozen or so eggs, I noted two turkey eggs were in various stages of hatch. By the time we left to go to my beloved great aunt and uncles farm to pick up a new fancy commercial style brooder, of a sort I could certainly never afford on y own, one was nearly hatched, and the other about a 1/3 of the way done. When we finally got back home around 8:15 my sister had already cuddled, imprinted and moved the one poult, and the other had literally just slipped from its shell.

Fluffy new chick and the new keet

This morning both are fluffed out and perfectly happy with their six guinea keet and one chick friends. Additionally, my last remaining turkey egg, and I believe another chicken egg are both hatching. There are still a few guinea eggs under the hen, but I'm not sure if they are any good or not. I guess time will tell. Meanwhile I've got the start if all goes well to a beautiful guinea and turkey flock.

2 comments:

ellie k said...

That mean old hen might make a good pot of chicken and noodles. When I was young and my parents had chickens if a hen started to sit and they didn't want her too my dad put her in a small tub of water and covered it so she could not get out and she would not sit down because her body would get wet. A day standing in water up to her feathers would break the habit of wanting to sit all day. I was very young but remember this old fashion way of doing things but I remember the good noodles even better. I loved the egg bag that my mom always boiled in the noodles. Did other people eat the egg bag?

Paintsmh said...

Honestly I don't know. I've never even heard of such a thing.