What killed my guinea?

WallyBirdie

Crowing
Aug 2, 2019
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1,869
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Lost a guinea hen last night. Feathers everywhere and the body mostly untouched. There is a nasty puncture/hole in the neck. What would kill but not eat my bird?

Known local predators/pests:
coyotes
foxes
opossum
raccoons
weasels
hawks
 
If it went for the neck I’d assume a weasel or a mink. Most likely a weasel. In my experience with raccoons they ate the entire head. :( I’m very sorry for your loss.
-Rachel
 
If it went for the neck I’d assume a weasel or a mink. Most likely a weasel. In my experience with raccoons they ate the entire head. :( I’m very sorry for your loss.
-Rachel
Thank you for the reply and condolences.
It's always hard to lose one. I recently lost a gal to old age, and now I've lost a guinea. Is there any way to keep weasels away?
 
Were there live birds in the coop when you found the body?
My birds in the coop were fine. Out of 8 guineas, 2 like to roost outside sometimes. This was one of those nights. Predator problems don't often occur and the guineas are usually pecking at the door or window early in the morning. This morning, only one of those two were waiting for me. The other had been attacked.
 
My suggestion is if you have a game camera, put it up. That is how I found out what was killing my birds. Some picture were taken several years ago.
PRMS0003.JPG

I put a bird in a cage to see what was killing my birds.
PRMS0003 01.jpg
PRMS0003 10.jpg
PRMS0002 01.jpg

This is more recent. I didn't have quite enough good netting so bought some netting online that wasn't what I thought it was and the owl kept going through it everytime I replaced it with more of the same netting. I moved the birds to another coop and put a camera up. The owl went right through the netting each time I replaced it with another piece of the crappy netting I have since replaced it with some good netting.
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DSCF00031125 10.jpg

The owl made another try but now I had changed the netting and it got caught in it. DH and I managed to get in into a cage and called some wildlife people who came and took it.
IMG_20200229_133056.jpg
 
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Thank you for the reply and condolences.
It's always hard to lose one. I recently lost a gal to old age, and now I've lost a guinea. Is there any way to keep weasels away?
No problem. I know how hard it is to lose one especially to predators. We had a weasel here that killed one in a night and left the other two unharmed until the next night. It’s hard to keep a weasel out if that’s what it is. I have hardware cloth now. It’s hard to tell exactly what, and as others said a game camera would be smart. Luckily for me my cat killed it later on and I had it on a game camera so I knew what it was. It killed the one duck the same way and just went for the neck.
 
Lost a guinea hen last night. Feathers everywhere and the body mostly untouched. There is a nasty puncture/hole in the neck. What would kill but not eat my bird?

Known local predators/pests:
coyotes
foxes
opossum
raccoons
weasels
hawks
Sounds like a dog to me. Do you have a dog running loose in the neighborhood?
Or it could have been an interrupted kill.
 

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