Missing Guinea Hen

First of all, I just wanted to mention that I've been away from home for the past few weeks, so I haven't been posting, and the Razzberry Corner blog has been neglected.  But now I am back home, back to the farm life, and back to the blog!

Guinea update - the wild male guinea fowl has now been hanging around the chickens for the past 6 days.  He's always on the roof of the chicken coop, and flies down to be with the chickens often.  The roosters are becoming accustomed to him, and don't attack him as much as they first did.  The 2 guinea hens have been watching him, and are friendly and come up to him when he enters the chicken pen. The male guinea fowl comes into the coop every night and roosts/sleeps right beside the roosters and hens.  They will all be friends again soon.

The male guinea is MUCH prettier than the female guineas.  I think it's because he eats bugs and grasses/seeds and whatever guineas are supposed to eat, instead of being cooped up and eating chicken food.  Here's a picture of the boy guinea that I took today:

And here's one of my female guinea hens taken today:

Because he just looks so good and healthy, we decided the females had to be let free.  They need more nutrition than they are getting, it seems to me.  They are guineas, not chickens.  They were put back out of the chicken pen Saturday, and the boy guinea was VERY excited.  One of the female guineas immediately started hanging with her new guinea man, and started walking around following him.  The other guinea hen wanted only to return to the chicken pen.  The lead rooster, Muffin, was in the chicken pen calling her, and she was quite upset that she was separated from her chicken family.  For some reason the guinea girls do not fly, so she just ran around on the ground outside the pen trying to get back inside again.  The other guinea hen and her guinea man took off walking around the yard, eating bugs and grass and doing what guineas do.

Eventually the one guinea hen was allowed to return to the chicken pen, since that was all she wanted.  The guinea couple had disappeared around the yard, the hen following the male, he was showing her what to eat and where to go.

Fast forward a few hours. I went and checked on the chickens, and the male guinea fowl was back hanging outside the chicken pen.  The one female was still inside the pen with the chickens.  But the other female, the one that was let free, was nowhere to be seen.  Only the male guinea knows what happened to her.  We searched for her, but couldn't find her or any feathers or signs of an attack.  We have no idea where she went.  The male returned to the coop last night and roosted with everyone else.  No sign of the missing guinea hen.

This morning, the male has been hanging around the chicken pen, like nothing happened to the one guinea hen we put in his trust.  So now we are down one guinea hen. 

Maybe she will return in three months like the male did.