Guineas and Chickens

We've been slowly introducing the chickens and the guineas to each other. At first the guineas were very afraid and would go to the top portion of the coop and hide. The chickens seemed to be more interested in eating the grow feed, so they pretty much ignored the guineas and went straight to the food hopper. You can see they are mingling together in this picture.


This is the top half of the coop looking straight down. When we first opened up the cage to the chickens, the guineas would line up next to the stairway and look down at the chickens. They would hang their heads way over, and it was pretty funny to see from below.


We left the cage open one night and Buffy, the alpha chicken at the top of the pecking order, went up there to be with them and show them who was boss.


Last night was the first night the guineas slept outside. Previous to this, the chickens (all 19 of them) were crammed into one coop and the guineas in the other. Guineas naturally sleep out in the open like this, so soon the chickens will be able to use both coops again. Unfortunately, the guineas got quite a scare this morning when some javelina broke into the chicken yard. Two of them flew over the fence to get away from the javelina, and they were making quite a racket this morning trying to get back into the chicken yard. Thankfully, they all survived. Findlay didn't make a peep while all this was going on. He's not a good watchdog. Maybe he's deaf -- or scared!

Guineas

Today we got our guineas in the mail. They are African white guineas.

Here's how they were packed in the box.

This is their setup with the heat lamp and their food and water. One of them drowned in the water bowl within hours, so now we're down to 15 guineas. It looked like he/she fell asleep in the water and drowned.

No fashion sense

Today Paul said, "That's an interesting outfit you're wearing -- Black shorts, extremely white shoes and socks, and white legs."

San Diego 2010

Campsite setup

Becky cooking a delicious shrimp fettuccine dinner

Camping with electricity and internet access - the only way to camp

Jet ski fun

Red Dragon

Paul got a new toy to play with. He bought a Red Dragon propane torch to burn the weeds in the yard.

He was having a wonderful time burning weeds in the backyard. After about half an hour I went outside to see how things were going. I looked around the yard and saw some smoke coming from the corner of the yard by the fence. So I said to Paul, "Should the fence be smoldering over there?" He calmly looked around, didn't seem too alarmed, and said, "Go put it out." I don't think he could tell from where he stood that the fence was on fire. He told me later that he wasn't going to go near the fire because he had a propane tank on his back. I suppose that was wise!

Paul surveying the damage.