My beautiful Guineas are gone, don't do what I did.

Everything had been going well with my Guineas, they were fat and happy; I let them out of their Guinea coop in the morning and as the sun went down they would all return to their coop, I'd lock their door and they would be safe for the night.

About two weeks ago I decided to throw a couple of scoops of their Guinea food on the ground outside
their coop...they loved it, descending on it and pecking it up as fast as they could like feathered Hungry Hungry Hippos, I loved their enthusiasm so I started giving them a scoop or two outside their coop every day.

After a few days my Guineas refused to go back into their coop as the sun went down; I warned them
about the Owls and Foxes but they didn't seem to care. One night a series of very strong thunderstorms rolled in and they lasted all night; when I checked on my Guineas in the morning only one remained and there were three spots in the yard with a lot of feathers.

I think a Fox grabbed one or two Guineas and the others flew off into the woods (I live in the middle of
the woods with heavy forests on all sides) and got lost. My remaining Guinea sounded so sad calling for its flock all day, it was terrible. I found a nearby farm that runs a petting zoo for school kids and was able to take my Guinea there so he would have a flock of Guineas with which to hang out. The woman running the petting zoo and I talked a bit and she told me that my mistake was feeding them outside of their coop; until I did that their coop was "Home" and once I fed them outside the coop their tiny pea sized brains reset and all the great outdoors became their "Home."