Thursday, April 28, 2011

Fowl situation


The odor in the shop was beginning to be fowl - 6 guineas were growing and needed outside air i figured. Prematurely and with no thought to the weather, 2 nights ago I let the six loose in the chicken coop. They immediately went to the highest roost and nestled in behind the hens. In the morning they were on top of the laying boxes. They seemed happy to stay in the house after I let the chickens out; but I did leave the small door open. In the afternoon I found 4 guineas in the yard and two (as seen in the picture) still in the coop. I asked Baldwin to close the chickens up that night as I was going to be late getting home from Qigong. I sensed something was amiss when i arrived home noting the light on in the coop. Baldwin had been unable to even find the guineas and had left the light on and chicken door open in case they came back. I closed the small door and went to bed with worry for the loose guineas. What a stormy night with high high wind and an 1" of rain which woke me up several times. A guinea hell of a night. In the morning I could hear the "buck - wheat...buck - wheat" of the guineas. Three were by the garden fence; but before I could corral them towards the chicken yard, Mr. Lee chased them off. Since i had to go into town, I hazarded that the three would be ok until I returned. In the afternoon when I returned, I found a dead guinea - and heard no familiar guinea talk. I feared that others had meet the same fate as the dead one. I walked to the river. John Weeks came to cut the lawn. By almost 7 when I sent to see the weather upstairs on TV, I heard a peep - a guinea "buck-wheat." And at the front steps was a lone guinea. I threw out some corn and kept Mr. Lee inside. I figured that as evening came I might be able to catch him. By 8, I walked to the chicken house, and unbelievably there was a guinea - no two guineas. No, as I got nearer, 5 guineas were at the door of the chicken house! I had some sport catching all 5, but all 5 are in the chicken coop for the night! I'll make an outside smaller yard for them in the morning - they are definitely too young to be out loose.

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