Moon Over My Lambie

Lara and Gardenia are huge and I was sure that the full moon last night would bring on the lambs….I was wrong. Hopefully they will lamb tonight as they both look so uncomfortable. Gardenia actually gave birth to Azalea last Easter so maybe she is holding off to have Easter lambs again, seems appropriate!

So with no pictures of new lambs handy I present this years first guinea egg. They are about half the size a chicken eggs but just as good. The shells are very, very hard. If you hard boil them they actually bounce without the shell breaking.

There Be Monsters…..

Last night 4 Guinea Hens decided to sleep in the pine trees instead of in the safety of the coop. This is not the first time this has happened around here.

When the Commander went outside this morning at 0530 to water the sheep he found the remains of a headless guinea.

For the last week or so in the woods surrounding the house we have been hearing owls calling back and forth to one another, I think that is what got our unfortunate guinea. I found these huge footprints in the snow around the coop area this morning. They look like guinea tracks but these were much larger.

The poor guinea must have put up a pretty good fight as there were feathers everywhere. The Commander spotted one of the surviving guineas by the woodshed this morning while it was still dark but he couldn’t catch it. Guineas are horribly night blind and are easy prey once discovered in the dark. The guinea by the woodshed was lucky as it must have flown to the security light by the garage to enable it to see for its escape.

While the Commander was out walking around he heard at least three owls calling each other so I took a flashlight out into the yard and made as much racket with the dogs as I could. I wasn’t just concerned about the owls, I was also worried about prowling fox!

Sunday morning I spotted a huge black fox trotting behind the goat barn. I didn’t have time to get my trusty 12 gauge but I’ll be ready for him next time he is on the prowl around here.

From the looks of the tracks I think more than I owl was tramping around on the ground last night. The other two guineas showed up at dawn and were desperate to get into the coop area. They must have flown blindly from their tree perches and hid in the underbrush. Whatever happened last night caused all Guineas to tuck themselves away safely in the coop tonight well before the chickens retired for the evening. Some lessons are learned the hard way.

Wandering Guineas

Guinea hens normally live in trees, but since ours have been raised with/as chickens they live in the chicken coop. The first Winter we had the guineas a few started to roost in the trees, unfortunately one night an owl feasted upon all the guineas that were outside the safety of the coop. I woke up to a bitter harvest of headless guinea bodies, not pretty.

Last Summer a few of the guineas began to venture forth and spend time in the trees, a few even spent the night outside. I was happy that once Winter set in they decided to roost with the chickens as it was both safer and warmer.

With the onset of Spring in the air the guineas are once again setting out to explore the property. I have seen them in the trees and in the sheep barn. The other day I watched as a gaggle of eight guineas marched their way into the sheep barn and began to holler and screech. Their cries were amplified by the loft in the barn and the echos of their calls had the sheep totally spooked.

These pictures mark the first time that I have seen the guineas perched on top of the goat barn. I like that they are venturing forth as we will have a lot more cleared land for them to patrol this year. The guineas are great at devouring ticks, and in this role they are worth their weight in gold.

Bullies

The Guineas have started bullying the chickens lately, kicking them out of the coop when it is really cold and being general nuances around the food bowls.

Normally I rely on Leopold to be the enforcer to make sure the chickens get their fair share of food and aren’t picked on too badly. Unfortunately Leopold has had troubles of his own lately. The cold has given him a bad case of frostbite on his comb and the Guineas have taken to picking at the black parts.

Yesterday I had to go out to the Coop area to rescue poor Leopold from 4 Guineas who were holding him down and picking at his comb (I don’t have a picture), there was blood everywhere. I’m keeping a close eye on him and if things get any worse I will have to bring him inside.

When the Guineas stay inside the coop I think they eat the chicken eggs. I can’t prove it but for three weeks I didn’t get hardly any eggs at all. Next year I’m hoping to get a separate coop for the guineas, I don’t like how they bully the chickens.

I’d like to thank Tayet Silverspoon for the Liebster Award.

Here are the rules:

1. Copy and paste the award to your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger that gave you the award.
3. Pick your 5 favorite blogs with less than 200 followers and leave a comment on their blog telling them about their awesomeness and that you have rewarded them for that fact.
4. Hope that they will pass on the award to 5 more awesome blogs.

Awards are nice as they provide an opportunity for the recipient to direct a few of their readers to an overlooked or new Blogger. There are so many good blogs out there that it is easy to miss out on one that is entertaining or provides great information. The blog list on the right side of my page provides a sample of some blogs that I love to follow. The Liebster Award has been making the rounds so I’m only going to award it to one blog, JennyG over at LostArtsFound. I like how she opens her post with a quotation, and she has a uniquely informative writing style – enjoy.

Guineas Dreaming

It was 6 degrees F this morning and will be dropping down to -2 degrees F tonight. That is cold, but it gets a lot colder here.

The Guineas normally stick to the coop area on cold days but when the sun is shining they sometimes venture out into the trees to dream.

Guineas are indigenous to Africa (excerpt from Wiki): The Helmeted and Vulturine Guineafowl generally reside in open or semiopen habitats such as savanna or semideserts, while the remaining species of guineafowl mainly inhabit forests.

Not much resembling that kind of habitat here.

They are lovely, entertaining birds to have around your farm. They simply eradicate ticks and provide a summer supply of eggs to supplement the chickens production. They are excellent sentries and call out whenever a stranger or non-farm animal makes an appearance. Once one gets used to their “singing” they are wonderful additions to the homestead.

That being said I’m sure today they are thinking that it is COLD.

What kind of a flock IS this?

Leopold is the rooster in charge of the coop area and he has his hands full trying to keep order. Look at the picture above. In it you will see; a Rhode Island Red, Lavender male and female guineas, a Dark and Light Royal guinea, a few Golden Laced Red Wyandottes, and Leopold. A few of the guineas think they are chickens, one of the chickens thinks it is a guinea…..chaos, its pure chaos.

Little chicken squabbles break out on occasion and Leopold rushes in to break things up, but what is he supposed to do when several guineas are chasing chickens…except for the chicken that thinks its a guinea? Or how does he handle the chicken that the guineas think is their mama? Did I mention that all the guinea males follow Leopold around like he is their king?

Last year Leopold suffered a bit of frost bite, by looking at him you can see why. As it gets colder Leopold spends more and more time inside the coop and at times you can hear the sounds of wrestling going on in there. I can only assume he is trying to keep or establish some kind of order, I’m not holding my breath.

Wounds, Worms, Traps, and Losses

When Sunday rolled around it was time to give everyone a second dose of wormer; fun, fun, fun. I decided to start with the rams and took them in the same order as last time. As the leader ram Killarney was selected to go first as he has a habit of trying to protect his buddies whenever the Commander grabs them. As we were holding him I noticed some scabs and blood on the top of his head and on his nose.

Seems Killarney has been spending some time bashing heads with his so called friends.

I sprayed some antibiotics on his wounds and finished worming him, I couldn’t wait to see what battle damage the other boys were sporting. As I was feeling around on the top of his scull I couldn’t help but notice how thick the bone on the top of his head is. No wonder it doesn’t seem to faze him when he crashes into his fellow rams at full speed!

Alders horns are very wide yet he showed no sign of cuts or abrasions. The Commander had his normal struggle capturing “Wild Man” so I could give him his dose of wormer, these sheep are strong! I don’t know how people with larger animals can handle them.

Ironwood and Albion were finished last with no problems. I didn’t see any wounds on Ironwood, but his horns are so massive that he must hit with them instead of using the top of his head.

I still haven’t figured out how the door to the rams shed has been getting opened but the night vision camera I set up caught this little critter crawling around into Sara’s kennel.

I don’t think he is the culprit but what a cutie pie!

Listen to him growl!

The girls were wormed next with the usual panic at being touched. It looks like Ava has recovered from her illness completely and will be ready for breeding next week.

Here is a shot of little Alma and her tiny horns – they are almost scurrs really. She is the smallest ewe we have so I am a bit worried for her come lambing time.

Finally one of the guinea nuggets was killed by what I think was an owl Saturday night. The guineas have gone back to sleeping in the coop since that tragic evening, it just isn’t safe around here. I wonder how long their fear will keep them inside and safe before the decide to sleep in the trees again.

Fall Foul

Indian Summer is over and the nights are getting cold. The Commander lets the birds out every night when he gets home and he relies on Leopold to bring everyone home before it gets too dark.

The mini-guineas are growing fast and are almost as big momma chicken. They fly outside the coop area during the day and then pace back and forth trying to figure out how to get back in with momma. It is funny to see them all perching on branches or the fence while momma looks up at them with a disgusted look on her face.

The mini-guineas spent a few nights out in the trees before the cold hit, we now find them snuggled in close to momma when closing up the coop at night.

The chick-let is growing fast but still has fluff instead of feathers. I hope it can survive the cold nights. Honey still sits with it in a nesting box, not big enough or old enough to perch yet I guess.

I wonder if the chick-let is a boy or girl?

Determination

Guinea girl somehow survived the night terrors, cold, and broken eggs to hatch out a clutch of eggs earlier this summer. The odds were against the little ones so I took the survivors and gave them to a broody chicken, those lucky 8 are still alive. The 4 that stayed with Juliet were taken by a fox.

It is late in the year but I found Juliet sitting on a new nest of 18 eggs!

It is way too late in the year and getting too cold at night for her to have any chance of hatching them out so one day while she was out foraging I took up her eggs and now they are on their way to International Falls. A woman I know there lost all her chickens to a dog attack and she wanted some eggs to hatch. She knows she will be getting guineas but I’m not sure she realizes how loud they can be. I did add 4 chicken eggs that were laid on the day she visited so hopefully she can have a mix emerge from the incubator.

Juliet is back spending her nights in the coop but she still disappears during the day, I hope she hasn’t started another nest!

Prey at Night

I went out to the coop the other morning and saw guinea feathers on the ground and in the pine tree. I thought for sure one of the guinea boys were “taken”.

Turns out the Diablo somehow survived the attack. I think he fell out of the tree into the coop, and whatever was after him couldn’t get in. Note the big bare spot in the middle of his back where there used to be feathers.  The bare spot is a lot bigger than it looks in this picture, you can see bare skin!

The two guinea boys spend more nights outside than they do in the coop. The are teaching the little guineas to stay out with them…much to momma chickens chagrin. I hope whatever it was that attacked them has moved on. I have to pray for them every night.