Wild Guineas

.

The wild guinea family hung around most of the day. Above is a picture of them up at the coop. I had to zoom in all the way from the cabin - otherwise they might have run off.

The parents are a dark slate gray, the three immatures are a much lighter gray. We've seen them on and off all year.

This was the first time they were bold enough to come all the way up to the coop to snack on spilled grain. Bergak [the white male we brought with us from Atlanta] has fought on several occasions with the wild guinea male and driven him off. But now that his mate Chi Chi is gone [taken by the bobcat], he's mellowed some. Our birds have been locked up for a couple of days due to predation so this was an opportunity for the wild guineas to come closer.

We're down to 12 guineas now. The males fluffed themselves up at the approach of the wild male, who ran a few times at the run in a little guinea charge. The females stuck in the run meanwhile called desperately for him.

We wish we could get the wild ones to join our flock. But Bergak may continue to drive the male off. If only we could get our young and their young to interbreed we'd have a much bigger future flock and some genetic diversity. Our 11 immatures are all from the same parents - Chi Chi and Bergak.

These wild guineas abandoned Brian and Leslie's homestead [where we got the ducks] about 2 miles up the road and have been hanging around here ever since.

Yesterday we ran a few errands and I started on the roof - removing a section of rafter to put the support box and chimney through. I started the cuts with a circular saw, then jigsaw, then camp saw, and finally hand saw to finish as I ran out of room up against the roof sheathing. Nothing quite like cutting wood upside down by hand in a tight space while standing 12' up on top of a shaky ladder. Today I'm waiting for the metal roof to dry so I can get out on it and cut through it to install the chimney. It may be a while. Right now we're socked in with heavy fog.

The ducks, I guess from watching the guineas so much, are constantly trying to fly. They run around on tiptoe beating their wings. Occasionally they'll get a few feet off the ground. When we went to put them up for the evening yesterday one of the female rouens was standing up on top of the nest box.

Three eggs yesterday, from Claudia, Rosy, and Goldie. Little Bit almost never lays so for the chickens we have left it was 3 for 3, a good egg day. It's interesting how egg production always seems to rise when the birds are locked up. The only conclusion is that when free-ranging they don't necessarily lay where they're supposed to.

The 4' piece of HeatFab stovepipe should be delivered today, and Vic has a sheet of cement board and 4 tiles for the stove to temporarily be positioned on so we can get the right connection height. If all goes well, we could possibly get the stove installed and fired up this evening.

But the fog needs to burn off before we can get started.
.