You may hear a new sound while visiting Abundance Acres this summer. Pete the Keet, our newest farm helper, is a Guineafowl.
Guineafowl are an excellent form of pest control, catching and eating small rodents, insects and ticks, and we always thought it would be helpful to have them on our farm. But Pete joined our farm very unexpectedly.
Each spring we purchase 100 meat chicks to raise and sell. The noisy cheeping box arrived in the mail from a farm in PA. This spring as we unpacked the box, our kids noticed one very unique, beautifully striped chick. They dubbed him ’Stripey.’ As the chicks grew, we soon realized that Stripey was definitely NOT a chick. A quick search on the internet proved that he was in fact a Keet – or a young Guineafowl. Thus he was renamed, Pete the Keet! How one random Keet found it’s way into our box of chicks is still a mystery to us, the hatchery in PA doesn’t even sell Guineafowl, but we are thankful for him all the same.
Pete the Keet has grown into quite a strangely, handsome fellow, happily joining our chicken flock, and his loud call can be heard all around the property. Stop by and say ’Hi’ to him sometime!
