HELP - Guinea fowl dying

sscruffey

Hatching
5 Years
Apr 11, 2014
3
0
7
Last week Friday (4/4) my husband checked on our Guineas in the AM only to find one dead. He cleaned the cage and kept an eye on the rest; especially when another started to act weird (laying down away from others). He saw her lay an egg, left, came back an hour or so later - dead. We kept a very close eye on the others and threw away all eggs produced. We also had the wild game bird feed checked and it turned out OK. We still got rid of that bag and bought a new bag. All was going well for about a week when we noticed another hen acting funny (4/9). Husband heard a commotion in the evening, checked it out - another dead. We both left for a few days but did notice another laying by herself, pretty happy to just lay on the ground. My sister checked on them Thursday and all alive but the one was still laying on ground and only ran away when approached. I came home this evening (4/11) to find two dead hens.
We are at a loss. Don't know for sure but think the wattles have lost coloration (red to white). The hens seem fine then don't and are then dead within a day.
The fowl have been going outside pretty regularly.
HELP!!!!
 
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Got a necropsy completed on the bird we lost last week Saturday (4/12). The results were internal bleeding due to blunt force trauma. My vet called:
Vet: "Any chance your guinea hens got into rat poison?"
Me: "Not that I know of. I don't know of any rat poison on our property - we haven't placed any around."
Vet: "Do you see any hawks on your property?"
Me: "YES!"

Vet's conclusion - hawk tried to pick up a guinea but couldn't fly off with it due to the hen's weight and dropped it from about 50 ft.

I have not seen any hawks actually pick up a guinea and then drop it; however, I'm not watching my guineas 100% of the time. We have cats and don't have problems with hawks going after them. Oh..... a puncture wound - not a killing wound - was found on the body also pointing to possible hawk capture in the vet's eyes.

I am at a loss of fixing this - don't see any way to do so. But, I am still a little concern that maybe this isn't the cause due to 6 birds being affected. My husband witnessed a pretty heated sexual encounter between one our males and one female that passed - could this be bad enough to cause blunt force trauma. Just thinking and too late to discuss new idea with vet.

Has anyone witnessed hawk attacks on guineas??????
 

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