Her rooster never got the chance.

Something did get one hen, and another one, who was probably a witness, totally freaked out, stopped laying and died shortly after. I can't remember if she stopped eating, but suspect she did.

Maybe he could have saved them, who knows?

Yeah, every chicken has his own character.  Some Roosters are pretty bad.  My neighbor has one and all he wants to do is fight and fuck.

A good rooster will break-up fights between hens, warn the flock of predators,  find food for his ladies, and die defending them from threats.

I would have liked to seen that

Damned fine thread, made me laugh and reminded me of how comical farm living can be.  Also reminded me that I don't want Guineas at my new place.

At one point we had a good sized free-range flock, but it's numbers dwindled steadily for a few months.  One day I watched one of our hens in the front yard eye the sky and make irritated noises at a hawk circling high above.  I was elbow deep in diesel oil wrenching on a truck nearby.  I noticed the hawk go into a dive headed right at this chicken, and thought to myself, "Welp, we just lost another hen."

Wrong.

The hawk was coming in hot and the hen was watching him the whole way down.  Right about the time the hawk gets to about 25 feet off the ground, the hen leaps straight up, does a backflip and kicks the hawk in the head with both feet.  She made contact about 6 feet off the ground.  Completely threw the hawk off his game and his flight plan.  He smacked the ground with a "thwap!" and landed in a heap.  After a couple seconds, he regains his senses and stands up, at which point the hen was waiting for him.  She charged him at once.  He does a running take off across the yard with the hen hot on his heels and makes his getaway.

We never lost another hen.

I'll also add my two cents about guinea fowl.  Currently have 4 adults.  Lost three to predators and one to stupidity.  14 more just came out of the brooder and moved into a small shed until they are grown.  Gotta keep them locked up for the first few months or they WILL depart the region for lands unknown.  The 4 adults are really good about returning to the coop every night.  They'll sit outside the coop at dusk and yell at you to come open the door so they can go to bed.

First post nailed it.  VERY loud and profoundly stupid.  Every day I say to myself, "These birds could NOT get any dumber than this!"  Almost daily I am proven wrong.  You've heard, "Make something idiot proof and somebody will make a better idiot."

Guineas are the ultimate idiot.

All that said, our tick population is WAAAY down from last year.  They definitely work for tick control.  Far better than the chickens.

That’s almost move for move what our little Mille Fleur did, except when the hawk went thwap, Murphy leapt on him like he was a full grown champion fighting rooster. Raking him, spurring him, flogging him, ripping at feathers and bulldogging him. That little rooster brought the fury of Satan and all his demons down in that poor hawk to the point I felt bad for it, and every time the hawk would stagger to his feet, Murphy would pounce again.

Yeah, it was crazy to watch.  It I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I never would have believed it.

I have a few memories of guinea fowl in a driveway of one of Dad's friends.  I wasn't very big, and squatted down amongst them to look at them.  I was admonished and told they could "get me."  The weren't mean to me and so I watched them for a while and went back to the back porch.  I thought the feathers were pretty.