Guineas....another type of bird

We bought three guinea keets from a guy in PA last weekend. They are sooo cute, but spooky!  Or, since they're birds, maybe a better term is "flighty"?!

The guinea breeder had a whole big bunch of the baby guineas.....they covered about 1/3 the floor space of their brooder in his garage. They moved like a flock whenever they were startled...which was often. They were funny - they piled up on each other in a heap in the corner away from the opening...bowling over the couple chicks in with them.

The day we went to see them, he had taken 10 to a flea market in the morning and sold all 10....I wonder if those flea market shoppers know what they're getting into?

The guy had a bunch of different colors in a coupe large outside runs. They seemed to be age separated. I need to remember to bring my camera when we go on these adventures. A picture is worth a 1000 words, or so it is said.

After looking at his birds - lots of game chickens, some ducks, tons of guineas, some quail, and several breeds of chickens, we selected three keets from the youngest group. which colors did we chose? I ave no idea ... we just selected for interesting markings. I can't really tell the difference between a pearl grey, slate, or sky blue without a color guide before me...if then! Although some have dots and others don't. The ones we selected are mostly pied and light colored brownish. Time will tell. A shame the head markings become less noticeable - they're very attractive.

Again, out came a post box for the ride home. I wonder if the US Post Service knows its boxes are transporting all manner of live critters around...not necessarily by mail -- my taxpaying heart protests!

The ride home was a noisy hour-plus. However the birds were much quieter when we put on a Pure Prairie League CD.

Right now they're in a box in our garage Scared to death whenever I reach in to feed or water them. Plus they are a lot harder to catch than a chicken. Even at 3-4 weeks they are pretty good fliers within the confines of their brooder box. Need to make more effort to catch them and get some serious handling on them - Living in that brooder with the other 30+ birds, they didn't get much one-on-one human interaction.