great guinea massacre III

Oh, man, today we lost four of our five guineas. Poor things! And the poor single guinea left, traumatized and alone, keeps making her fear-peep out there in her violated guinea pen. Hard to say what it was that got them, but the chickens had scattered–two taking up residence inside the goat yard and two out in the woods (luckily finding their way home eventually). We are all a bit sad around here. Paul has sworn to increase guinea security, but I fear it may be too late.

As you can guess from the post title, this is not the first or even the second time this has happened. For three years running we have gotten guinea chicks, only to lose the lot of them to unknown circumstances. The first time, it was twenty adult guineas (!), while we were away. There were feathers everywhere. The second time, six babies disappeared silently in the night. Today it was four of five, yanked from their wire enclosure without lifting the lid, a Houdini crime for Ocean’s 11. I mean 12. Um, 13.

But, the real question is will the Last Guinea Left Standing make it to adult-hood? She’s about half-way there, but quite demoralized today. I’m hoping the chickens let her join their flock as an honorary chicken. It’s too big and scary a world be a lone guinea.