New Additions: Summer 2016

Back in January I had a premonition that I might be new additions of some kind to the farm…

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Yeah. I even put it on the bigass chalkboard. That’s legit.

I thought the new additions might take the form of a couple of pygmy goats or some sheep, but, frankly, the bees, vineyard, orchard, greenhouse, and doubling the size of the garden have been quite enough for me this year. I just don’t have it in me to put in another fence, or stall, or anything that would require setting anymore posts in the ground to be honest.

But, as luck (and broody guinea hens) would have it, we’re not without a couple of new additions on the farm this summer…

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By “a couple” I mean twenty. Twenty baby guinea keets that hatched on July 4. I knew she’d been sitting on a nest somewhere since I hadn’t seen her around the barn for a few weeks, but given her spotty success with hatching and raising chicks last year, I wasn’t really anticipating, well, this…

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You know who also wasn’t anticipating this? The chickens.

People ask how they’re handling the new additions, and I’ll tell you… they’re mostly bewildered. But, I mean, you would be too if every time you tried to eat you were suddenly surrounded by twenty little cotton balls running around on legs, right? Right.

Otherwise, everyone is getting along just fine. I was a little nervous about the keets learning to drink from the waterers (something I think didn’t happen last time, which contributed to the 14 keets born last fall not making it a full week) so this time I made a point to put several different watering dishes out for them, and I also flooded my driveway a couple of times a day for the first few days (sounds ridiculous, but inevitably Mom would take them across the driveway and once they stepped in the puddles the would instinctively stop to drink.) And while I thought that was a rather clever move– one that probably saved the babies lives– Mom showed her appreciation by beating me over the head with her wings a few times.

Real things that happen on the farm.

Still, she’s a good mom and at least 19 of the babies have made it the first two weeks (it’s hard to get an accurate count as they literally never stand still.) And now that they’re a couple weeks old they’re proving to be an endless source of entertainment.

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Seriously, the cute. I’m definitely not keeping them all on the farm indefinitely, so I’ll look to re-home most of them in the next month or so, but for now they sure keep things interesting around here. Well, between that and this little guy…

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There’s seriously never a dull moment on the farm.

15 Responses

  1. Do the guineas roost in the coop with the chickens? How ya gonna catch those youngins to rehome?

    Ya know, there’s really only one good thing to do with that coon, unless you want to feed ‘pet coons….and all it’s brethren.

    1. The adult guineas do, but right now mom beds down in the tall grass with the keets. They’re in the barn enough that I’ll be able to catch them when necessary!

  2. She said…heck, this year mother nature and I’ll give her keets ~~~ and then there were twenty 😉

  3. Too bad those cute little raccoons grow up to be a nuisance.

    My new coop should be done in the next week or so. This will be my first time with any kind of farm bird. So I have nervously been reviewing some of your older posts to reassure myself that I haven’t forgotten anything!

  4. Oh Kit, you made me laugh so hard… I assumed “inevitably Mom would take them across the driveway” referred to YOUR mother and I got so confused by “Mom showed her appreciation by beating me over the head with her wings”

  5. LOVE!!! We recently had that same conversation with a possum that believed he could stay in our ducks’ feed full time. Toss him out and he’s be back later….

    Hey Kit, my Insta Farm pics are not changing and I love to see what’s new between postings. Did you stop adding to it? Thanks! Pam in NH

  6. Missing your weekly updates… hope you are doing well. I find the heat here in eastern Ontario makes doing outdoor projects a bit difficult, but you have inspired me enough that I tackled replacing an old 6 ft X 6 ft wooden fence panel by myself. It turned out great!!!

  7. I’m going thru Kit withdrawal…3 weeks without a post! You must be VERY busy, can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to…

    1. Busy and a little burnt out from all the spring work, but I’m working on a bunch of updates that will post in the next week! Thanks for sticking around while I went quiet.

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