Pics of keets and flock

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

We just started letting the six week old keets and mom Welsh out with the flock yesterday! The group did well, though Welch is newly convinced that I’m after her keets so I only got grainy, far away iPhone pics... Some highlights: Welch giving the keets lessons on flying into tree branches. Good job Welch! Welch taking the keets into the dog yard... No! Keep out of the dog yard! I decided it wasn’t too early to do our dog yard training: Oreo the beagle runs at the guineas to make them fly over the fence to safety... Since keets are young, Oreo was on a leash. It worked great for Welch and 6 of 7 keets. The last, a pied pearl grey, kept flying into the fence instead of over... I finally grabbed it and gave it a lift into the air (you know, the classic dove flight release), and the darned thing only flapped a few times then landed poorly on the other side of the fence! My kids were there and were quite critical of my amazing guinea predator training methods... Then DD stated that this pied keet wasn’t getting named anytime soon because it seemed too dumb to survive. Checked later and all keets were with mom and looked fine.

I got some flock pics too, and only just now saw that Ghost, my original male, is missing part of his upper beak! Poor guy, wonder what happened? I had meant to remove the coop feeders that are getting wet and put out another Peck o matic toggle feeder in the coop, but now I’m thinking that he needs a deeper feeder to eat properly...

 

[southwind00]

I've wonndered about getting one of those peck o matic's , they probably stay a lot cleaner. I can't imagine Ghost broke his beak on plastic, probably something harder , maybe another guinea beak?

 

[Tre3hugger]

Lol I think your training method sounds highly effective. do you like the peckomatics a lot? When the food trigger is toggled, does food fall into that red catch thing, or you put a dish under?

So proud of Welch! doing mama stuff

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

I've wonndered about getting one of those peck o matic's , they probably stay a lot cleaner. I can't imagine Ghost broke his beak on plastic, probably something harder , maybe another guinea beak?

I don’t know! I had a rooster in a bachelor pad who had a peck o matic who broke the tip of his beak last year. But, roos and cocks both get into a lot of trouble with the other guys... I wouldn’t think that the peck o matic is hard enough to break their beak but the guineas do really go at the feeder when they’re hungry. I just saw Ghost and the other boys have a big chase party yesterday. I hope that means that he’s still eating well and feeling good.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Lol I think your training method sounds highly effective. do you like the peckomatics a lot? When the food trigger is toggled, does food fall into that red catch thing, or you put a dish under?

So proud of Welch! doing mama stuff

It’s great watching Welch vs Scout Red, who raised 2.5 mo old keet Scout Lemon. Scout Red was not as adventurous with her keet and kept her right with the flock as much as possible. Welch seems like she is deliberately showing important things to the keets, which is really cool.

 

[Sydney65]

I don’t know! I had a rooster in a bachelor pad who had a peck o matic who broke the tip of his beak last year. But, roos and cocks both get into a lot of trouble with the other guys... I wouldn’t think that the peck o matic is hard enough to break their beak but the guineas do really go at the feeder when they’re hungry. I just saw Ghost and the other boys have a big chase party yesterday. I hope that means that he’s still eating well and feeling good.

So will the beak grow back? I tried looking it up but the same info telling me no was telling me yes.

 

[R2elk]

So will the beak grow back? I tried looking it up but the same info telling me no was telling me yes.

Depends on how severe the damage was. The beak like your fingernails is continually growing. As long as the roots are undamaged, the beak should grow back. Increasing the protein in the feed can help in beak growth.

 

[Sydney65]

Depends on how severe the damage was. The beak like your fingernails is continually growing. As long as the roots are undamaged, the beak should grow back. Increasing the protein in the feed can help in beak growth.

Thanks, that's what I thought you had told me once, but what I was reading was comparing it to tooth instead.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

So will the beak grow back? I tried looking it up but the same info telling me no was telling me yes.

If you magnify the picture above with the lavender adult guinea cock, you can see that the tip of his upper beak is missing. Yes, I do think that the damage is small enough that it will grow back, but I need to keep him healthy enough to let that happen. We actually lost the roo, Vespucci, that this happened to last winter. He was a gorgeous black Ameraucana and one of my daughter’s favorite birds. He was the head roo in the bachelor pad. They had a peck o matic and a horizontal nipple waterer, and I didn’t realize that he was injured until I saw him trying and trying to get water. I added a water font and another feeder and he looked ok for a few weeks, then got beat up and lost his spot as head rooster. He wasn’t injured but all of his head feathers were pulled and he was very stressed. We separated him but he never recovered and we realized that he had developed signs of Marek’s disease. We have Marek’s in our flock so stress is a big problem because it activates the virus. To my knowledge, guineas don’t get Marek’s and I haven’t had one show signs of it.

Vespucci’s whole story was why I was happy to see Ghost interacting normally with the other guys yesterday. Ghost is already low in the cock pecking order, so he doesn’t have much to lose status wise. I put a large metal dog bowl with gamebird starter crumbles in the coop today. Bruiser chased Ghost off from it but I’m hoping that once the novelty wears off, Ghost will get to eat from it. I plan to keep a bowl of food in there until Ghost’s beak looks better. I may also try letting them out earlier in the day so there’s not so much confinement stress, but that will depend on whether more time out makes them approach the street again.

 

[Sydney65]

If you magnify the picture above with the lavender adult guinea cock, you can see that the tip of his upper beak is missing. Yes, I do think that the damage is small enough that it will grow back, but I need to keep him healthy enough to let that happen. We actually lost the roo, Vespucci, that this happened to last winter. He was a gorgeous black Ameraucana and one of my daughter’s favorite birds. He was the head roo in the bachelor pad. They had a peck o matic and a horizontal nipple waterer, and I didn’t realize that he was injured until I saw him trying and trying to get water. I added a water font and another feeder and he looked ok for a few weeks, then got beat up and lost his spot as head rooster. He wasn’t injured but all of his head feathers were pulled and he was very stressed. We separated him but he never recovered and we realized that he had developed signs of Marek’s disease. We have Marek’s in our flock so stress is a big problem because it activates the virus. To my knowledge, guineas don’t get Marek’s and I haven’t had one show signs of it.

Vespucci’s whole story was why I was happy to see Ghost interacting normally with the other guys yesterday. Ghost is already low in the cock pecking order, so he doesn’t have much to lose status wise. I put a large metal dog bowl with gamebird starter crumbles in the coop today. Bruiser chased Ghost off from it but I’m hoping that once the novelty wears off, Ghost will get to eat from it. I plan to keep a bowl of food in there until Ghost’s beak looks better. I may also try letting them out earlier in the day so there’s not so much confinement stress, but that will depend on whether more time out makes them approach the street again.

Supposedly they aren't susceptible to chicken diseases, then again, aside from dead keets, that was another reason I joined here, bc some info said they had to have the same vaccinations as chicks, some said no, some said only vaccinate if the disease is already in the area. - do w/that what you will. I have a feeling that's why Himelf is so adamant against me getting chickens, which makes sense I guess.
What made me think that the beaks wld grow back is the amount of time they spend filing them. Totally unrelated, but I had to keep an eye on the teeth when the kids had guinea pigs and rabbits to make sure they were gnawing enough to keep them filed.