Six of the seven guinea hen eggs in the in incubator hatched so instead of moving them to the garage I gave to mamma chicken. I moved mamma chicken, her two chicks and the six guineas all out to the new chicken brooder house to give them some privacy away from the other birds - safety for the little ones.
Unfortunately one of the keets didn't survive the first day but everyone else is doing great.
Last year one of the chickens raised a batch of keets and it turned out great. The predators surrounding this place have taken four guineas so far this year (three females) so I may need to keep some of these, hopefully a few are female.
I have yet to successfully put new chicks with a broody hen, they always peck them to death or near death. How do you get your hens to bond with the already-hatched chicks?
ReplyDeleteAfter the coyotes snatched up my mama hen last year, her baby adopted another hen. This hen had not been brooky at all. That mama hen you have is beautiful! Hope no predators come take your sweet chicks.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn - That is odd, maybe it has something to do with the breed of chicken? The two older Americauna teens adopted one of the other hens and she is teaching them the chicken ropes!
ReplyDeleteRBF - The are locked in at night and have netting over them. It won't prevent something from digging in but the ground there is VERY hard.
Awww, the chicks are so small! Whenever I introduce chicks or keets to mama hens I sneak them under her at nighttime. Some hens just won't take to babies at all - I have one hen who sat on eggs for a month and when they hatched she attempted to kill them. Then some hens love being mamas and have no problem taking anyone else's babies (keets or chicks). I think it has to do with the chicken. My latest batch of keets have no mama, I wish that I had just one broody hen this summer. We want to get some chicks, too, but need to wait till the keets are bigger since we have no broody hens to assist us.
ReplyDelete~Lynn
Lynn - I am thankful that the mamma's here have taken to the keets immediately and they did a great job raising them.
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