can you sex guinea keets at day one??

[critters]

Seems like I read somewhere that you can "guesstamate" the sex of day old guinea keet by
something to do with the 'feathering quill' under their wings...???

any truth to this?? and if so, how is it done???

I ran thru many old post and could not find anything but felt sure I read it somewhere ....

this is my second year with guinea and thought if true I would try and guess their sexes
and see how many correct guesses I got when they are grown....got day olds here just waiting!!

 

[JHorn91180]

Yes this is possible but not sure how to explain it. I grew up with guineas and had always played with them as keets. My mom first noticed that when they were a day old I would pick certain ones out and name them. The ones I named girl names were always hens as adults and the boy name ones grew up to be males. When she would ask how I was sexing them as chicks I would always just say well some look like boys and some look like girls and out of hundreds of keets I have never been wrong. When we needed new breeding stock she would ask me to pick out a certain # of hens and a couple males and they all grew up to b what I sd. We used to hatch them in groups of 100+ and sale them all by 2 days old as we kept a list of buyers. One time a local man came to purchase 40 and mom told him she could have me sex them for him if he would like. I was 13 at the time and he told me I was full of it and basically made fun of me so mom winked at me and handed me a box and told me to go get him 40 of the keets that hatched yesterday. I went out and put 40 in the box and he paid for them. Several months later he called our house and asked to speak to me. He was very angry as all grew up to b males and sd I did it on purpose. My reply was how could I do that on purpose remember its imposable to sex them at a day old and hung up on him. A few months later he came back apologised and asked for all hen keets this time. Called back again months later asking again how I knew they were all hens but all I could say is idk how to explain I can just tell by looking at them. He was a customer for many years after and he sent lots of business our way. To this day I can still sex them at a day old with 100% accuracy and I can do this with Turkey poults at well at about 95% accurracy. All I can say is I must of spent way to much time as a child with the critters lol but at a day old males act like adult males and hens act like adult hens. Once I was so dissapointed as one of the guinea hens I selected to keep back as a breeder had a wattle turn out like a male but other stayed like a hen. Thought sure I had made a mistake til she began laying eggs.

 

[R2elk]

Has anyone sent you a video of day old guinea fowl?

Please pay attention to the date of the post that you are replying to. In this case, the post you replied to was from May 6, 2012.

If you hover your pointer over the member's name, a pop up will happen and if the member is no longer active on BYC you will be able to see in this case "Last seen Nov 9, 2013".

Do not expect to receive a reply from a person who hasn't been on BYC since 2013.

 

[R2elk]

You have a talent for sure JHorn. Do you reveal your secret or is it hush hush? I hatched out three recently (ordered eggs and the post office thought it was NFL time) and one of the three has stripe from eye to ear whereas the other two have white faces. Hmmm, what are the chances you reckon? thanks Joe T

If you hover your pointer over the member's user name it will bring this up.

As you can see, the member that you replied to has not been on BYC since Nov. 9, 2013. You will not get a response from her. She never provided any proof of her claims.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

She isn't the only one that claimed to be able to sex newly hatched keets. None of them ever provided any proof.

I thought maybe I had some kind of system going last year - the biggest, fastest growing keets were male and the smaller keets were female. Fast forward to this year, where my biggest keet, a Violet, has just started to buck wheat call her fool head off at six weeks old… Abother big keet, a royal purple, is an even more persistent buck wheat caller! I wanted to call her something cute, but so far it’s “Loudmouth” that’s sticking… It’s actually really cute when the adult girls start calling and these squeaky little keet voices chime right in.

 

[Sydney65]

If you hover your pointer over the member's user name it will bring this up.
View attachment 2878933
As you can see, the member that you replied to has not been on BYC since Nov. 9, 2013. You will not get a response from her. She never provided any proof of her claims.

Too busy down at the hatchery making her fortune.

 

[Sydney65]

I thought maybe I had some kind of system going last year - the biggest, fastest growing keets were male and the smaller keets were female. Fast forward to this year, where my biggest keet, a Violet, has just started to buck wheat call her fool head off at six weeks old… Abother big keet, a royal purple, is an even more persistent buck wheat caller! I wanted to call her something cute, but so far it’s “Loudmouth” that’s sticking… It’s actually really cute when the adult girls start calling and these squeaky little keet voices chime right in.

I understand your dilemma..the puppy gets called Knucklehead more often than not.
I'm clueless w/day old keets, but do still get best results from watching direction of helmet growth.
But if you remember the day I wrote abt Blue sunning himself until Bella ran up,body checked him and then parked herself infront of him, then one has to ponder whether THEY even know for sure. My poor boy looked confused- but only for a few seconds.

 

[R2elk]

Too busy down at the hatchery making her fortune.

She isn't the only one that claimed to be able to sex newly hatched keets. None of them ever provided any proof.

 

[zazouse]

Never heard of that for guineas but have for chickens.
You got a 50/50 chance so go for it and let us know what ya find?

 

[PeepsCA]

I've been asked this several times, but don't know if it pertains to keets or not
Keets don't even have feather quills at a day old, lol

I'll have to look really close at my next hatch!