Saying Bye To Some Guineas, Saying Hello to New Chickens

All this time I had been dreading capturing eight of the sixteen young guineas that the guinea mom and dad had done such a great job of raising. Believe it or not they all trusted me as much as a guinea can trust a human. (They are always wary) Doing what I did made it even harder and made me feel guilty. Last week I got a cage from the neighbor so I could round up some guineas for him. I have a hard time letting go of anything around here, but they went to a very nice family with 11 acres and will be very well taken care of. I have to tell you it was VERY easy to 'catch' them. I opened up the cage, put some millet birdseed down in the bottom and everyone just couldnt step in fast enough. I had eight plus mom in a matter of minutes. I had to get the net and scoop mom back out and I had to make sure the one young one I knew for sure was a girl wasnt in there. She wasnt. I closed up the pen and there I had it all ready to go. Ian helped me tote the cage over to the old truck and put them in the back. At first I thought we should sell the old truck, and if someone comes along that wants to buy it then we will sell it. It has turned out to be of a lot of use to us from transporting bales of hay to transporting animals. It keeps the dirt, poo and scratches out of the new truck bed.

I called the neighbors up and let them know I was on the way over. They used to buy eggs from me sometimes but now they have their own chicken flock. He has a very nice bunch there on the farm. I pulled on around through the gate and to the back where he had a pen all set up and ready for them. With guineas you want to pen them for a couple of weeks to make sure they will stick around. They aren't as domesticated as chickens and you have to make sure they know where home is when nightfall comes.



After he got them settled in their pen we talked awhile and I took some pictures of his chickens of course. His americauna rooster is just a sweetie. He is just so pretty. All of his chickens are pretty tame. He has red sex link hens, americauna hens, and a black austrolorp hen. He also has another americauna rooster but he is not with the flock and keeps to himself. Then there is the white rooster...I don't remember for sure what breed he is. Here are some pictures I took when I was over there.










Look at that pretty rooster face baby! Isnt he just handsome? So so sweet too.

So I headed back out down the driveway, taking a few pictures of some of their horses out in pasture...






We made a trade...guineas for three buff orpington hens that he didnt care for. He says they seem kind of dumb. Not unheard of, I have a few red star hens that look like there is nothing there, just empty space...when you look into their eyes. Buff orpingtons were my first chicks ever though and I hold a strong love for that breed so I gladly took the girls. Here above is a picture of them still at his house. I have them in a pen for now so they can see the flock and the flock can inspect them without any fights breaking out. My silver laced wyandotte hens tend to always be looking for a chance to assert their dominance and one kept doing just that yesterday evening. She would go over to the pen and flare up, a hen in the pen flared up and they would be sizing each other up. I would make the wyandotte go on, but she would be back in minutes.
There may be some fussing when I put them in with the others but after a few days things will settle down. Well this is getting kind of long so I am going to wrap it up for today. After I left the neighbors house I stopped over and visited another good neighbor...but I will talk about that tomorrow, with pictures of course. :) Everyone have a nice Monday!