All right, this really sucks and this is the first time I've seen this.
I have an LGD that I'm training on the poultry (more on that in another topic later) but she's a pup and is still chasing/catching and occasionally killing birds. Yesterday morning she got a hold of a young (not quite half grown) guinea. She immediately dropped it when I yelled at her and I was able to go get it. It had some missing feathers and bruising, was all wet and lethargic so I put it in a cage with food and water so it could rest and recoup. To be perfectly honest I thought it would die. Miraculously it was alive and dry and by evening it was doing great though it seemed to have slightly droopy wings. I reintroduced it to it's clutchmates and it was as happy as could be, doing the usual guinea silliness and eating and drinking well.
We did what we could to leave it be, it put itself up for the night with some of the young chickens so we left it there. It was fine today and my son caught it and checked on it. Sooo, tonight I go out to the coop to do the final late evening check on everyone and as I'm turning the corner to the front I hear the guinea alarm squawk. I rush to the front in time to hear it hit the ground from one of the roosts and see it come flopping my way along the wall of the coop. None of the other birds seemed alarmed or disturbed in any way and there was no sign of any predator.
It had blood above one eye and blood on the side of its neck. It died in my hands....the area of the neck with the blood (not alot btw) was swollen, dark and more solid than I think it should have been.
So the question is: Is this a loosened blood clot? Brain hemmorhage? I was shocked and it's all we could come up with. Nothing else in the coop was amiss in any way.
Sorry if I rambled, we love our guineas dearly and though we over populate with them to take up slack from losses, it doesn't mean we don't mind losing them...
I have an LGD that I'm training on the poultry (more on that in another topic later) but she's a pup and is still chasing/catching and occasionally killing birds. Yesterday morning she got a hold of a young (not quite half grown) guinea. She immediately dropped it when I yelled at her and I was able to go get it. It had some missing feathers and bruising, was all wet and lethargic so I put it in a cage with food and water so it could rest and recoup. To be perfectly honest I thought it would die. Miraculously it was alive and dry and by evening it was doing great though it seemed to have slightly droopy wings. I reintroduced it to it's clutchmates and it was as happy as could be, doing the usual guinea silliness and eating and drinking well.
We did what we could to leave it be, it put itself up for the night with some of the young chickens so we left it there. It was fine today and my son caught it and checked on it. Sooo, tonight I go out to the coop to do the final late evening check on everyone and as I'm turning the corner to the front I hear the guinea alarm squawk. I rush to the front in time to hear it hit the ground from one of the roosts and see it come flopping my way along the wall of the coop. None of the other birds seemed alarmed or disturbed in any way and there was no sign of any predator.
It had blood above one eye and blood on the side of its neck. It died in my hands....the area of the neck with the blood (not alot btw) was swollen, dark and more solid than I think it should have been.
So the question is: Is this a loosened blood clot? Brain hemmorhage? I was shocked and it's all we could come up with. Nothing else in the coop was amiss in any way.
Sorry if I rambled, we love our guineas dearly and though we over populate with them to take up slack from losses, it doesn't mean we don't mind losing them...
