My guinea hens have been my "tragic-joy".. I never really liked birds, I appreciate them, but never liked them. I like seeing the birds fly about the field on a summer's eve, I like hearing birds singing in the morning, I appreciate fresh eggs, and bug control, but for me and birds, that's about it. UNTIL my guinea hens... now you all know about Ed and I trying to wrangle them in at night... trying to get them out of tall pine trees, making sure that they are safe from hunters of the night... and the fact that I am down to five of the seven... makes me pretty protective of them. Well, on the 23rd... two of my hens actually spent the night outside. For the most part, they stay in now, they don't like the snow, but that day, two went out, and somehow couldn't figure how to get back inside. The last I saw of them was in a tall pine... since I have been thru this before with one or two of them... I simply gave up and hoped they would make it thru the night.
The next morning (Christmas eve day)... one hen had at least found her way to the top of a closer tree. The hens inside kept calling to her, but she would only answer back and not attempt to get out of the tree. I don't know if she didn't want to be in the snow, or she didn't know where her friends were... but I ended up shooing the three outside, and when she saw them... she flew from the tree and joined them. This of course, still left one outside, but the day was bright and sunny and I figured she would eventually come in. During the afternoon, we began to get rain... and then the wind began to blow. Christmas eve we ended up having quite a storm, the wind blew very strong (enough to knock the power out for five hours!!!) and I was quite certain that the one lone guinea hen would be blown away.
Christmas morning when I checked in at the barn, Betty said she thought she had heard a hen outside somewhere, and when we opened up the stall doors, there she was. I couldn't believe she had made it thru the wild night!!!! I was pretty happy to see her.
Today, Ed and I came up with a way of fencing the henny's in their stall. It meant taking chicken wire and closing off the top of the stall, so they can't fly out. It was a difficult job!!! but we managed to do it. Beside from being able to completely lock them in, it will also help keep the barn cleaner... they are birds, and you know they don't care where or when they poop... so they have made a big of a mess. I feel much better tonite knowing that I can (for the most part) control them, or at least once I get them in their stall, they'll stay there.
I'm not sure they're so happy about it... but... too bad!!!!!
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