The Painful Loss Of Atiya The Guinea

A guinea hen surveying her domain - OpenCage, A-Z Animals

On Sunday tragedy hit the Girlz Best Friend family. One of our beloved guinea hens, Atiya, went missing. I searched for her for hours, scouring every inch of the surrounding woods and bushes, but there wasn't any sign of her. My sister came out to help me look and I brought my dog, Hailey, who has an amazing talent for finding guineas but we didn't have any success locating Atiya.

Finally, I was forced to give up and head inside to make dinner. I had been in tears all day and felt miserable and depressed. Anyone who says that animals aren't an important part of peoples families should have seen me on Sunday. I kept looking out the window, hoping to see Atiya running into the yard but I knew in my heart that she was gone.

My four guineas were always inseparable, and the other three never would have left her alone in the woods unless she was on a nest. I held a slim hope that she was nesting but I had just found a nest the week before and she wouldn't have layed enough eggs to be brooding yet in a weeks time. I also thought that my dog would have found her if she was hiding out in the woods somewhere with a nest.

The next morning I let the hens and my three remaining guineas out of there run like usual and was talking to my sister outside when we heard a huge commotion coming from the woods. The three guineas came flying into the yard, honking and crying like the devil was after them. The female, Karam, flew right into the pond she was so upset. I made sure Karam swam to shore and checked on the other guineas to make sure they were okay. Everyone seemed to be unhurt so I decided to check out the area they had been scared in.

I walked up to the edge of the tree line and looked around for a moment before I noticed movement. After getting a better look at the thing in the woods I realized it was a coyote which had probably tried to attack the guineas. It had probably killed Atiya the day before and come back for more the next day.

 It is sad that I lost Atiya to a coyote and I'm doing everything I can to keep the other poultry safe right now. It seems like we're under siege from predators this year, first a black bear and now coyotes... I'm still mourning the loss of my sweet Atiya but I count myself lucky that I didn't lose any other guineas to the same coyote.