I caught the first bird. A small one, of different color than our Bert. This one is pretty and has a lot fewer spots. I'm trying to compare photos online, and I'm pretty sure this one is either a chocolate or a royal purple. I decided to call this one Iris.
The second bird she caught. Slightly bigger than the first, but the same color as Bert (pearl grey?). She stuffed it in the box before I got a good look at it. I decided to name this one Ernestine (so we could still have some semblance of a Bert and Ernie pair).
Flash forward 45 minutes to when I released the new birds into the barn so they could get used to their new environment... Little Iris walked around making the "buck-wheat" sound typical of a guinea hen. Meanwhile, Ernestine went back and forth between the "wheat" call of a male, and the alarm call screaming. Well, that didn't work out the way I'd wanted. Ernestine is clearly a male - his waddles are much bigger than Iris's. They're both smaller than Bert. It doesn't seem realistic for me to hope he will be visited by the magical "sex change fairy" that seems to frequent bunny barns around the world. So, now I have two male guineas, and one hen. So... Either Ernestine needs a new home, or I need more hens. Since we have many acres that could be great hunting grounds for these tick-eaters, maybe more guineas is the answer?
We opted against getting chicks today from Tractor Supply. They said ducklings come on Wednesdays. Tomorrow Tony doesn't work until noon, so if they get their duckling order in early, we might be able to run and pick a couple out. If not, he gets off early next Wednesday and he can pick some up on his way home (a bit of a detour).
He got the camera to work sometimes, but we haven't figured out how to get it to livestream yet. I guess we're running out of time. I think we will be returning this one and getting a more expensive version. This one keeps getting hot and turning off randomly. That doesn't seem right.
Today in the mail I got seeds for Black Cobra peppers (AKA Goat's Weed peppers). This variety has fine silver hairs all over the leaves and stems which makes them look pretty neat in the photos I've seen. They're said to be decorative and hot. They are black and then ripen to red. I think they'd be pretty in the garden, even if I don't enjoy the heat of the peppers themselves.