Guineas of a different color- Vulturine Hybrids!

[racuda]

That is very interesting. Your ebay ad says you don't know for sure who is laying, so I assume that Vulturine eggs look like regular Guinea eggs. Have you checked fertility lately?

 

[spectrumranch]

Quote:
Yes the eggs look the same. Fertility has been very good. Last week I set 6 eggs with 5 developing. I had 5 chicks hatch out of 5 eggs last week in the incubator, I then put the chicks under a broody hen, but lost one chick a few days later.

 

[PDurkin]

Would you be willing to ship in September when the weather cools down a bit?

 

[Cetawin]

The Vulturnes are gorgeous as are the hybrids.

 

[spectrumranch]

Quote:
The eggs listed on ebay should be ready to ship on Tuesday. Not sure if we will sell anymore eggs AND I have no idea how long they will continue to lay.

 

[Magic Birdie]

wow!

 

[SassyKat6181]

Absolutely stunning birds. Makes me want to move away from Massachusetts to a warmer place just to have them.

 

[AquaEyes]

Interesting, but I hope they're sterile.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
They most likely are hence the word hybrid versus cross. But why do you hope they are? Just curious.

 

[AquaEyes]

perchie.girl :

Quote:
They most likely are hence the word hybrid versus cross. But why do you hope they are? Just curious.

Because I see what a mess has happened with peafowl (admittedly, the blue and green species are more closely related than the vulterine and helmeted guineafowl). I'd hate for the vulturine hybrids to be fertile, then get bred back to vulturines in an attempt that mirrors the spalding for people who can't keep pure greens because of climate. The end result of the quest for ever higher percentages of green blood in spaldings is that unscrupulous sellers pass them off as pure greens, and then the gene pool for pure greens is contaminated. And, the spaldings that look "too blue" end up contaminating the blue gene pool. The result, in peafowl, is that virtually all in captivity are hybrids, knowingly or not.

P.S. I'm not saying that spaldings aren't beautiful. But I wish that they didn't become so ambiguous that those seeking pure blue or pure green now have to usually be satisfied with "almost."

:-/


ETA -- "Hybrid" and "cross" are rather overlapping in meaning. "Hybrid" can be the "cross" of two different inbred lines, two individuals with different genes under consideration (Black X Lavender), two different breeds, two different species, etc. The term used does not have anything to do with fertility of the offspring. Breeding a scarlet macaw with a blue and gold macaw (two different species) results in the hybrid called a catalina macaw. This hybrid has characteristics of both its parent species, and it's fertile. Some breeders then cross the catalina back to scarlets, creating camelot macaws. And then they cross camelots to scarlets again.....and if you end up with a bird that is 1/32 blue and gold and 31/32 scarlet, it becomes hard to tell it from a true scarlet. I don't have a problem with hybrids per se, but when they can become confused with non-hybrids, then it's very easy for someone to get something other than what they paid for. And the captive gene pool of that species becomes tainted.​