Guinea Colors - Breeding

[Krazyquilts]

Very interesting thread! I have around 25 teenage Jumbo guineas (Pearls) but I recently bought 4 "fancy" guineas: a bronze (that I can't tell apart from the pearls but the coop that they are in doesn't have perfect lighting), a white, a opaline, and one that is probably light blue. I can't wait to see what color keets I get once they start breeding! (Assuming any of the fancy color ones survive free-ranging. Lots of predators around here.)

 

[R2elk]

Very interesting thread! I have around 25 teenage Jumbo guineas (Pearls) but I recently bought 4 "fancy" guineas: a bronze (that I can't tell apart from the pearls but the coop that they are in doesn't have perfect lighting), a white, a opaline, and one that is probably light blue. I can't wait to see what color keets I get once they start breeding! (Assuming any of the fancy color ones survive free-ranging. Lots of predators around here.)

The Bronze should be easy to tell from the Pearls. The Pearls if they still have the feathers on their heads will have a broad center stripe while the Bronze will have squiggly lines instead of a broad center stripe. The Pearls will have the dotting all over their feathers while the Bronze is only partially dotted and will have some dotting on its lower body but not on its wings or back.

If your different color keets breed with your Pearls, the first generation offspring should all be Pearls. The one exception is that if the White guinea breeds with a Pearl guinea, their offspring should all be pied.

 

[Krazyquilts]

The Bronze should be easy to tell from the Pearls. The Pearls if they still have the feathers on their heads will have a broad center stripe while the Bronze will have squiggly lines instead of a broad center stripe. The Pearls will have the dotting all over their feathers while the Bronze is only partially dotted and will have some dotting on its lower body but not on its wings or back.

If your different color keets breed with your Pearls, the first generation offspring should all be Pearls. The one exception is that if the White guinea breeds with a Pearl guinea, their offspring should all be pied.

Cool, thanks for the info. Sounds like if I want any color other than more Pearls, I'll just have to buy them. Darn!

 

[R2elk]

Cool, thanks for the info. Sounds like if I want any color other than more Pearls, I'll just have to buy them. Darn!

Not necessarily. When the youngster that you produce start breeding with each other all the hidden color genes will start showing up. The reason the first generation will be pearls is because pearl gray is the dominant color. But many of those offspring will only have one pearl gray gene plus at least one other recessive color gene. The second generation may contain all kinds of surprises even ones that you don't expect.

I never expected to get Royal Purple keets from a Coral Blue hen mated to a Chocolate cock but that is what I got. The next generation also produced some Violet keets from the Royal Purple hen mating with the Powder Blue cock.

Good luck.

 

[ChiefSuperFly]

Trying like crazy to post a pic

 

[ChiefSuperFly]

I think it worked!

 

[ChiefSuperFly]

Don't mind the leghorns Yaaay my first picture!

 

[R2elk]

I think it worked!

In that pic, it looks like one Chocolate, some Pearl Grays and some Pied Pearl Grays. There are definitely not any Royal Purples in the photo.

 

[ChiefSuperFly]

Yeah I'm trying to figure it out for fun. I don't understand the ones with the white, tan, brown thick areas on their heads. The breeder had about 40 free ranging guineas of every color! Buff dundotte, coral blue, chocolate, pinkish looking ones? and only a couple pearl grays so I'm pretty sure the keets from these will be interesting!

 

[ChiefSuperFly]

Keet 1
There are two keets that look like this. This one is significantly smaller than ALL the others.