Differences between male and female guinea's

[GreenAcres825]

We recently picked up 6 guinea's from our local store, and since then I have been trying to figure out how many are male and how many are female. From everything I had read, the only way to tell them apart is their call. I have been listening to each one and I can now say that I have 4 females and 2 males. I have also noticed that, despite being told that there is no difference in looks between male and female, there most certainly is! Our male guinea's heads have different coloring, and their little skin flaps are larger and more red. I also did notice the distinct difference between the male's call and the female's call that is always mentioned. I searched through forums and looked up videos on youtube for a while, and I was hoping that this info might help someone else trying to figure out the differences between their male and female guinea's!

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Do you have pictures illustrating the difference in head coloration and wattle size? How old are the guineas you bought? Mine are 8 1/2 weeks and although some have started to make female noises, I would say there is no reliable difference in the way they look, although right now I don't know who is male and who is a female that just hasn't decided to start calling yet. Some of mine do have noticeably large wattles, but I am not ready to declare them male yet just because of age.

 

[GreenAcres825]

I do not have any pictures at this time, but I will take some soon. I knew by the call which were female and which were male, and that is how I discovered the difference in color. Mine are about 11 weeks old, I believe. I have pearl and white, and I can tell the difference in both. I will put up pictures as soon as I can to illustrate the differences that I have noticed.

 

[cricketjo76]

I have 7 and 4 are about 1.5 yrs old. They have just within the last 6 months grown into their voice. They changed a lot prior to the point when I thought I knew, I didn't. I'm almost positive they are males and my 3 younger ones are females. They changed so much from being little that it really makes it hard to determine. For me At least. I'm just waiting to see who lay the eggs at this point...

 

[GreenAcres825]

I've been hearing one female call for three weeks, and the other three females have been calling for two weeks. When I got them, I was told that they were two weeks old, but they may have been older than that. I'm assuming that they are between 11 and 13 weeks, and they are almost fully grown. I also had them in their own coop until two weeks ago, but they now prefer to be in the coop and run with the chickens and ducks. They would get chased by our chickens before two weeks ago, since they were a decent amount smaller, but now that they are larger they are getting along much better with our girls.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Some of mine have been doing two syllable calls since two or three weeks of age. However, it is a bit different than the "adult" call they are making now, but I assume its probably the same ones doing it. I never zip tied or marked them in any way since I wasn't keeping most of them.

At only 11-13 weeks, those "males" could still turn out to be female. Some females take a long time before they start calling, sometimes six months or more.

In any case, congratulations on the new guineas and I'm looking forward to seeing pictures!

 

[GreenAcres825]

This is the male white guinea, he has a darker head and larger wattle.


This is a female, with a lighter head and smaller wattle. She calls with the two syllable female call.


In this picture, you can see the difference since they are all next to each other. The two females have lighter heads while the male has a darker head.


Another picture of the differences between their heads. The wattles are more difficult to tell apart in the pictures, it was almost impossible to get a good picture because they never stop moving, but the male has a larger wattle.

I was not able to get a good picture of the pearl guinea's that we have, but they also have a color difference. I was not able to tell the difference between them until they began to call, and then I began noticing the color difference after watching who made which call.