Raising Guineas and Building Shelter

It is a little known fact that Guinea Fowl can be trained. People laugh at me when I tell them that I have my guineas trained to the sound of a dinner bell, then stare at me in disbelief when I demonstrate and 15 flying birds come at them! This was an experiment I created because the purpose of having guineas is to be outside eating ticks and other bugs. With this I had to devise a system where they could be free range during the day, but I could get them into the guinea house at night for protection from predators. So when they were about two months old every time I fed them I would ring a little cow bell. At approximately three months old I released them outside and the very first time I rang that bell they all came running to the feeder! Voila...Pavlov's Dogs works again! This system has really made it easier on me because now I do not have to wait for them to feel like roosting for the night and can put them up whenever it is convenient for me.
Would you believe me if I told you that we built our guinea house for $5.37? If you are willing to do some work and are handy with a few basic carpentry skills, you too can have an almost free guinea or chicken house. How we started is going to some of the local companies who throw away their wooden shipping pallets. If you do some exploring you can find pallets of various shapes and wood types, including hard woods like oak and soft woods like pine. Once you find a bunch the hard work begins. After some trial and error we discovered that the easiest way to dismantle these pallets into usable pieces was to use a reciprocating saw. We cut all of the nails flush with the board instead of trying to pull them out with a hammer.
Once we had dismantled about 20 pallets we separated all of the different sizes. We decided to save one large pallet as the base so it was raised off of the ground and it gave us a quick foundation. My husband quickly constructed 3 walls and attached them. We tried to make them as square as possible, but were not overly picky about it. Then he constructed the 4th wall with a large enough opening for a double dutch door. We had some old hinges for the doors and small pieces of really old metal roofing laying around that we pieced together. Then we cut one hole up high for a window that we covered with an old piece of screen for ventilation. That part of the framing construction went fairly quickly, the part of doing the siding felt like it took forever. Since all we had were tons of slat pieces from the pallets, we decided to do a clapboard type exterior. Ten million staples later (thank goodness we had an air gun) our guinea house was almost complete. The last necessary piece, which cost me $5.37, was the hardware cloth we purchased to staple to the floor. This allowed poop to fall through and kept the snakes out.
Four years later my guinea house is still standing tall and strong. We have made some modifications to it along the way due to adding chickens to the mix, like a nesting box on one side and a fenced paddock on the other.
If I had to do it all again, I might spend the money on a couple of sheets of plywood instead of spending so many hours doing the clapboards. You just have to decide at what point is your time worth more than the money you are saving. Overall, the experience embraced everything I love about farming...the ingenuity, the experimenting, the satisfaction of doing something yourself, and the time spent working hard with my husband as a team. That...as they say....was priceless!

Tricks to Raising Guinea Keets

Guinea fowl were the very first addition to my farm four years ago. I was complaining one day to my aunt that I couldn't even step out the door without getting ticks on me. She told me that guinea fowl were known for eating ticks. At that point, I had never heard of a guinea before so I checked them out on the Internet. They seemed easy enough to raise and care for so I called the local feed store. He gave me the name of a woman that raised guineas nearby and I called her. She was a very kind elderly woman and told me to stop by at my leisure.

My husband and I decided to go visit her the next day. As we pulled into driveway we saw guineas and chickens scattered everywhere! She gave us a tour of about an acre that had some old barns and lots of small nesting boxes set up everywhere. As we walked, my husband and I asked a lot of questions about feed, grit, housing, and other necessities. When it came time to purchase she told us she sells them for $2.50 a keet. I asked if it was possible to buy adult guineas and she said they would probably fly away and return to their original home. So I asked for just 3-4 keets and she said that I should get at least 10-12 due to the rate at which they get lost to predators. I agreed and we quickly boxed up 12 keets. The ride home was a noisy one!

The keets I bought were only about a week old so I set them up in the house with a heat lamp and regualr starter feed. They were so cute and fuzzy. My young daughter loved them! The next few weeks were full of lessons. First, once the keets get old enough to jump around, regular chick feeders and waterers will not work. Inevitably there was always a keet on top pooping into the feed or water. After a few unsuccessful attempts, we finally fashioned cardboard cones to duck tape to the top so they could not sit.

Second lesson, birds poop a lot! Changing the paper in the bottom of the box everyday was no small feat when you have 12 birds trying to escape. We finally figures out to put LOTS of paper in as layers. Then all we had to do everyday was roll up the top layer.

Third lesson, they always manage to spill their water so cardboard boxes are not the best option. Instead we purchased a $3.00 plastic tote and layered it with lots of paper. The bonus was that when we were done raising them, it could be disinfected and reused for the next batch of birds. This idea was then expanded upon when we taped two totes together in a T shape and cut a hole for them to get through. We then placed the water in one of the totes and the feeder in the other. This solved the problem of the water spilling and getting into the food that had fallen out of the feeder, thus creating much less waste. The keets actually preferred pecking for their food off the newspaper anyway.

Eventually the keets were large enough to be released outside. In the next posting I will give the details of that adventure and how we built a guinea house from pallets.

Sugar Is Safe For Hummingbirds

I learned something new today. As I gazed out my kitchen window watching two hummingbirds chase each other for the feeder, I suddenly wondered if the sugar solution I was making for them was actually safe. Often times animal lovers think they are doing something nice for wildlife and it can actually wind up harming them. I try not to do that so I hopped onto the handy dandy internet. I was delighted to learn that table sugar is perfectly safe for hummingsbids, but appalled to learn that the red dye that I have been using to attract them was not. I also learned that the general accepted ratio seems to be 1 part sugar to 4 parts water. There was some debate on whether or not to boil the water first...personally I vote for boiling because it certainly can't hurt. You can never tells what lives in your water these days.

Now time to go outside, get my hummingbird feeder and make a fresh batch of dye free solution.
Below I have attached a couple of the really good websites I looked at.
http://www.hummingbirds.net/feeders.html
http://www.asheville.wbu.com/content/show/11866

My Horse Has White Line Disease

My farrier told me at the last couple of visits that my horse has a mild case of White Line Disease (aka Fungal Onyochomycosis or Seedy Toe). By definition Equine White Line Disease is a fungal infection in the stratum medium. The infection sort of eats up the tissue. It can advance to the point where the hoof wall can no longer hold a shoe and the wall breaks down.

Since it was just a tiny little crack, my horse is barefoot and not getting ridden very often I had hoped after the first time she told me that it would sort of clear up on its own...but unfortunately it did not. Therefore, now I have started daily treatment. Everyday I clean out the infected hoof with a shoe nail (gladly provided by the farrier). Then I apply a topical gel prescribed specifically for White Line Disease. The intention is that if the anaerobic infection is cleaned out everyday then it will not have a habitat in which to thrive. Lets hope that my delay in treatment has not cost my horse his hoof!

Lost a Chick!

As I walked into the chicken house to look for eggs and fill the feeder, I noticed one lone chicken claw on the floor! My heart sank as I counted the remaining chicks and only saw 6 of the 11. Quickly I did a perimeter search and found that some of the chicks had squeezed through the fence and were hiding under the house. One, two, three, four....thank goodness I only lost one chick and not five. As I tried to catch them I spied the remains of the final chick in some tall grass. Poor thing was missing its head and most of its body. I concluded that it must have been something small like a weasel because there was no damage to the fence (so it must have fit through it) and it did not pluck any of the feathers off like a fox usually does. Time to get some fencing with smaller holes. I have had this fence up for the last three years and not had a problem until now (except for the occasional snake), but I think this is because I used to always have horses in this field keeping the grass short. I had decided this summer to give that field a break from grazing...good for the pasture ... bad for the chickens I guess!!!! Lessons learned...off to the store now!

My Perfect Chicken House Design

After raising guineas, chickens, and quails for the past few years, I have designed what I think would be the perfect chicken/bird house. This is my own personal design that would allow the different age groups to have exactly what they need and allow egg collecting, feeding, and watering without being mobbed by birds. Each room would include a large, fenced run and electricity. The feeder set up reduces spillage and makes cleanup easy. Having a mesh floor allows droppings to fall through into collection pans so they can be composted and keeps the inside clean and airy. I would also add some roosting posts...I have found old wooden ladders work great. The entire house would be tall so that a person could stand comfortably while collecting eggs and guineas can roost in their preferred high areas.

As of right now I do not have the talent or the funds to build this chicken/bird house so if any of you are interested in building it ...please let me know how it comes out. I would be excited to hear how different people would adapt it to fit their personal needs and the different materials used. One thing I know about people who build stuff for farm animals is they can be very creative using materials they have around already!

One of My Favorite Recipes

Now that I have accrued a sizable amount of green beans and potatoes it is time to make one of my favorite childhood recipes. When I was young I frequently spent summers with my grandparents in Maine. My grandmother and I would drive to a nearby produce stand to pick up the freshest green beans and potatoes. When we got home she would clean everything up and throw it all in a pot. Then she would add a good amount of cream, milk and some butter and let the whole thing simmer until the potatoes were done. To date, I have not been unable to recreate just the right taste of this recipe. I believe now that I have the freshest of ingredients myself, grown with love, I will be able to make my grandmother proud. Here's to good memories and good food!