Follow along with me as we discover new arrivals here at Prairie Home Farm. Last evening I took three large planted strawberry pots to the garden to get watered. I got the strawberries at a greenhouse that had everything on sale... Anyways, as I was watering the strawberries and started on the rest of the garden, Trish joined me and we started chatting about this and that! Soon, I heard hissing and knew it to be one of the geese. So, I looked for the geese and they all were gathered around a water bucket, taking on water. Well, except for Bubba G who was all puffed up, wings spread to it's full six feet plus, head high but looking at the ground hissing. So, I knew something was up and my first thought was one of the Buff Oprington chicks got out of their pen. Naturally, I stopped my watering and walked over to the location of the fuss and here it was a chick, but not the Oprington I thought it to be. No, rather is was a day old Guineas chick and it was lost for none of the adult Guineas were near by. I scooped up the little fellow before the geese could do anything harmful and looked about for the hen Guinea...but she wasn't to be found. Trish took the little new born to the house for protection and to give me time to come up with a plan on raising one Guinea chick. The chick did good in the house all night, but this morning I need to either find the hen, or put the chick with the older Oprington chick (not a great plan) or get the brooder ready again,which is the better plan, for Guineas, at these, are not good at mothering. So, this morning I am out opening all the doors to the coop, releasing the geese from their pen, let the dogs to their patrols and throwing down some cracked corn for a bit of a morning treat. All the birds, geese, turkeys, chickens were excited about the corn, but not the Guineas. The Guineas were hanging at the tall grass edge minding their own business when I noticed the hen with her winged out a bit housing chicks. Here she has eleven chicks with her, so in all twelve. Very cool! Again, these Guineas are have not been good mothers, so I gathered up four chicks to put with the one I already had. These five I will raise and the hen can have the rest. The hen has already lost one chick and will loose more as the summer progresses. But, the five in the brooder will make through to fall.
After putting the four chicks in the brooder, I grabbed up the camera to capture some more images of the family group!
What a bunch of cute little fluff balls the chicks are! Their silly mother is worse than useless, however. It's a good thing that they have you, Bill...Father Goose, or in this case, Father Guinea!!
ReplyDeleteThey are just adorable! My Bill said he had guineas when he grew up and could really relate to the story. What a neat post Bill, thanks for sharing and the photos!!
ReplyDeleteI was watching the adult guineas tending to the six chicks! They are doing a pretty great job, so I decided to give back the five chicks I had in the brooder. They (adults) are much more attentive this year.
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