I purchased a lavender female in the summer and was given a brown male. they free range. She laid eggs in August and hatched 11 keets. I kept them confined for three weeks and let them loose. its December and I'm have five plus the parents (lost some to resident hawks and a bald eagle). at least one offspring is female. is there concern If the offspring breed amongst themselves next year? also, to share my experience, I have not had a problem with noise like some others. they call for each other and if threatened. once my pit terrier mix was causing a ruckus with them and when I got there the dog was running for his life with mom and dad guinea chasing him at full speed and voice, but most of the time they are usually not noisy. they live mostly in 330' by 60' garden surrounded by electric fence. they have part of shed and roost in it at night. they wander out of garden to rest of yard (3.5 acres) and surrounding farmland (nearest house 1,000 Ft). they like to look at their reflection in my basement windows. In warmer weather they would roost in tree near house. my chickens are in tractor in garden and guinea dad does seem to torment them by running up to wire mesh and scaring them. I have had chickens get loose and never saw any problem with guineas. they are not far from the road but I never saw them in the street. I feed a corn type crumbles for game birds at night or whenever I get into the garden. they follow me when they think they are getting fed. they drink from drippers (although chickens wont). I showed one guinea how to drink and they all seemed to figure it out.

If you only get down to 0F then you are in Zone 7. I'm in Zone 5, where it can get down to -20F. Your thyme should stay evergreen outside; mine usually does, although this past winter I had a lot of dieback. It was not a very cold winter (only down to -8), but there was almost no snow cover and a lot of freezing rain. Chives will die back, which as has been pointed out is necessary for their health. You can pot some up and take them inside, after letting them die back. They will quickly sprout anew indoors. Grolau is a variety especially suited for pots, and mine is several years old. They need bright light, like a southern exposure, to do well. Thyme can also be potted up and will do well indoors under the same conditions as the chives. Basil will die, when it gets close to freezing and there's not much you can do about it. You can try growing some inside, but it needs BRIGHT light and long days to do well. I overwinter African Blue Basil, New Guinea Basil and a few others indoors, but don't even try the sweet or Genovese varieties. Parsley will stay green well into the winter and if you use a cold frame you might get it to produce all winter. My mom grows it in New Jersey in Zone 7 and it is still producing at Thanksgiving. I overwinter a couple dozen potted herbs indoors, mostly tropicals like Rau Om, Culantro and Rau Ram, that don't have a chance outside in a New England winter, but also a few standards, like rosemary, Berggarten sage and, of course, my bay tree, that I know will survive. They all go into south-facing windows with no supplemental light. Most just hang in there. Since they are stressed you constantly have to be on the look out for spider mites, white flies, etc. narcnh

I love to see everyone's visitors. Wish we had frogs. The possums would eat them though. Snakes don't worry me. If they aren't poison snakes. The little ones are soft and give delicate brushes with their tongues to see who you are. How can they go so quickly without any legs or feet? We have hummingbirds now. I found a young one on the ground and gave it sugar water and made it a nest out of moss. I put it in a hanging basket in my bottle brush tree. It called all morning for its mother and I kept my eye on it. By afternoon the mother was flying around my nest and by sunset the baby was gone.

FWIW, I just planted a 3-4" cutting which rooted in my vermiculite container nicely in about 3-4 weeks. I hope it would take. I know nothing about these New Guinea varity as far as culture indoors. Its Fall here in the east, so I would like to grow indoors hopefully till Spring, when I would put them out. I had put the 3'' pot in a south, sunny window which gives us some nice sun for at least a couple of hours where in the near future, it would get less sun with the shorter days approaching.