Will the Keets Come Out to Play?
September 17th, 2013 · No Comments · Posted in farming
The big day finally arrived for our Guinea fowl keets yesterday: their first taste of freedom. I opened the door to their coop expecting a mad scramble and flurry of wings toward the wide open farm yard. What I got was…
Well, what I got was nothing. The keets wouldn’t move. I left the door open and walked back to the house, found a place to sit on the front porch where I could observe and waited. I waited and waited and no keet dared even stick his head out the coop door.
Could it really be they preferred the confines of their four-by-eight-foot enclosure over the great outdoors? I approached the coop from the other end and tried to push the keets out with a length of lumber. That was enough to get five of the 15 birds to fly out. The rest continued to huddle inside. I was gratified at least to see that some of them were using the perches I’d installed. I moved the feeder and waterer out of the coop, hoping that would encourage them to be a little more adventurous.
At day’s end, there still were only five keets outside the coop. Now they were huddled underneath it. I’d built a ramp for the birds to get in and out of the coop, but none of them was using it.
As it grew dark, I turned my attention to getting the five outside keets back into the coop for the night. According to the Guinea fowl literature, you’re supposed to be able to “herd” the birds back into the coop using long sticks. I’d purchased some bamboo garden stakes at the feed store and approached the keets for the evening roundup. But all they did was scamper away and disappear into the bushes along the hedgerow.
Occasionally they’d squawk like mad, raising a huge ruckus. I’d wait for them to venture out from the bushes and try guiding them toward the ramp into the coop. Again they’d high-tail it back into the bushes. Apparently, the keets had not read the chapter on being herded.
Finally, I closed the door to the coop. The four who were loose would just have to fend for themselves overnight. There is another voice in the literature I’ve read that says Guinea fowl are perfectly capable of surviving on the farm without help from the human owners. Or maybe we didn’t show them enough attention to fully domesticate them when they were little and they’ll just wander off. Or be eaten.
Who knows? I have a feeling the keets have some surprises in store for us. One thing is certain: these birds sure ain’t chickens.
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