Guinea missing outside talons on both feet

[Fair Oak Farm]

One of my adult Guineas is missing the talons (nails) on the outside of each foot. I noticed some blood in the snow about a week ago and this must have been the cause. is it possible that the other Guineas did this to him. They free range in the day and are in a coop at night?

 

[JLeigh]

Hi, FOF - it's very possible the other guineas did it, but there's no way to know for sure unless you've seen aggression toward this guinea from the others. At least that's what I would think...But how is the guinea now? My guess is that s/he will get along just fine without nails.

Experts?

 

[Fair Oak Farm]

Thankyou for your thoughts. I just read and article about guineas with gout caused by food too high in protein with resulting kidney disturbance. The picture looked like my guineas feet ......hope that is not the case

 

[PeepsCA]

On average I have 80-100 Guineas, year round... free rangers lose toenails, penned flocks lose toenails. Depending on what they can get into/hung up on. It's common. A lot of Guineas are prone to growing extra long toenails, which makes them even more prone to catching them on something and ripping them off. Check your coop, pens, roosts etc to see if there's anywhere/anything obvious that the bird may have caught it's nails on and ripped them off. Usually if the flock is going to cannibalize a bird it goes way beyond just toenails, but if blood was on both of those nails the rest of the flock could have been attracted to it, and pecked at them.

Guineas need a higher protein diet than typical back yard poultry flocks do. I have never heard of or seen a case of gout in a Guinea caused by the diet. Gout is a lot more obvious than a couple of ripped off toenails... can you post a link to that article?

Posting pics of your bird's feet may get you better help/advice too.