It does not require a Pearl Gray to make a Royal Purple. It might be a possibility. There is too little real information about what causes Royal Purple.
I’m on some Facebook groups that talk a lot about the genetics of guinea fowl. I’m including a chart made by Dana Manchester (which he says is out of date and needs to be revised), plus a screenshot of Jessica Farmer’s pictorial, which I’m finding most helpful. These sources state the royal purple occurs when a bird has two semi-pearling genes. So, as I understand it, your Pearl Gray could have one or none of the Semi-pearling genes. Using this same system, your Slate is fully pearled but has two attenuate genes. The Slate could have two fully pearled genes or one semi-pearled gene. So, since both PG and Slate are fully pearled, you would only get 25% Royal Purple from them if each had one hidden semi-pearled gene. If either parent is homozygous for fully pearled, then you would get PG keets. If your PG has a hidden attenuate gene, then you would get 1/2 PG and 1/2 Slates.
It isn't that simple. A Royal Purple can have two semi-dotted genes or one semi-dotted gene and a no dotting gene.
Using this genetic system, chocolate would be two semipearled genes and two dark dun genes. Also, it sounds like you are talking about codominance at the semi-pearling allele, but this would be following simple Mendelian genetics, so they would need to be homozygous for semi-Pearling to appear semi-pearled. So, Chocolate would have two dark dun genes and two semipearl genes. Coral blue would have two lavender genes and two semipearl genes. If all other genes were wild type, resulting progeny would be homozygous for semi-pearl, heterozygous for dark dun, and heterozygous for lavender. Because dun and lavender are recessive to wild type (Pearl Gray), phenotypically, they would have the Pearl Gray base color and be semipearled, which would show as Royal Purple. I did find one paper that reports on test breeding for some of this, but it’s older and lacking light dun, attenuate, bronze, pinto, etc. I’ve tried to attach the paper, but am also including a link:
Well, the original wild guineas that our domesticated birds are from were Pearl Gray and fully pearled or dotted. I think that there a lot of different genes that can impact color of guinea fowl. From what I can tell, most of these genes are recessive though, so you need two copies of the gene to be able to “see” it’s effects. So if Bella was Brown and had two dark dun genes, she needed to breed with a male with dun genes to get keets that are brown. Her keets would have had one dark dun gene and one Pearl Grey. Pearl Gray is dominant so that’s what you see.
The Browns are said to have the buff gene. The buff gene is said to be sex linked. This means that a hen only needs one copy of the buff gene to display the buff/brown/chocolate color but that males need two copies of the gene to display the color.
Not a pied. Chocolate keets have lots of white on them. A Pied Chocolate would have a very narrow strip on the top of its head.
If the beak is out - it can breath. How long has it been out? I'd suggest posting a pic so gurus can have better idea of it's position and size of hole,but do answer questions. That's a lot of work, so once they pip, they'll rest and continue absorbing yolk. The only issues are if it's positioned wrong or at risk of shrink wrapping. @Mixed flock enthusiast @R2elk @Eggcessive
Congratulations!!! Adorable little babies you got there!
