Guinea color question- anyone know genetics well?

[janessakeen]

Hi, I hatched some keets and 2 of them are very different from any others I have hatched. The possible parents are: pinto or pied male, and pinto or buff female. I have other guineas but these 2 females were separate and i know the eggs were from them and either above male(pinto male is dominant over the pied). I only hatched a small group: 2 pieds, 1 pinto, and 2 that look very strange to me. I originally thought they were solid white but upon further inspection, both of them have a tiny dark dot on the back of the head. It is where pintos would be marked, but very very small. They are feathering out and almost completely feathered at this time and i noticed one has a single feather located near the preen gland that is partially colored, and the other has 2 or 3 partial colored feathers. They still have dots on the heads-which look like a speck of dirt they are so small... the feathers near the oil gland are lightly marked, like a pale/washed out pearl coloring towards the center and white around the edges. I have seen feathers like this on my pinto male for sure in his tail......So, I guess my question is: are these babies pintos that are just extremely white? or is this something else similar to leakage in chickens on a white guinea? Anyone else ever get any like this? I will try to upload pics, but any input is appreciated. I am hoping for a male/female pair so I can breed them and see what happens, they are super cute

 

[janessakeen]

 

[R2elk]

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It looks like you have two Pied Pearls, one Pearl Pinto and two whites. It is not uncommon for white keets to have a small dark dot on their heads. It will disappear as they lose their head feathers and they will become all white.

 

[janessakeen]

It looks like you have two Pied Pearls, one Pearl Pinto and two whites. It is not uncommon for white keets to have a small dark dot on their heads. It will disappear as they lose their head feathers and they will become all white.

interesting, i have never seen white keets with dots on the heads, and they have the tiniest amount of color near the oil glands.......unless i just never noticed before but i have always had all solid white keets. would a pinto x pinto or pinto x pied cross give solid white keets? I dont have tons of experience with guinea genetics since i previously ran all colors together and didnt pay much attention. i could identify most colors, but thats as far as my knowledge really goes. i know ive had whites from pied x pied crosses, but the pinto gene is a newer/less known pattern from what i gather so im not sure if that would be the same type of outcome

 

[R2elk]

interesting, i have never seen white keets with dots on the heads, and they have the tiniest amount of color near the oil glands.......unless i just never noticed before but i have always had all solid white keets. would a pinto x pinto or pinto x pied cross give solid white keets? I dont have tons of experience with guinea genetics since i previously ran all colors together and didnt pay much attention. i could identify most colors, but thats as far as my knowledge really goes. i know ive had whites from pied x pied crosses, but the pinto gene is a newer/less known pattern from what i gather so im not sure if that would be the same type of outcome

Years ago, I bought some white keets. Some of them had a small dark dot located in the same place as yours are. They all turned out white. I had read somewhere that white keets can have that small dark head dot.

Pintos as far as I know are just an exaggerated pied with far more white than normal pieds. Pied genetics are mating two pieds together will create 50% pied, 25% solid color and 25% white keets.

Mating Pintos to each other or to Pieds should also create a 25% White outcome.

 

[janessakeen]

Years ago, I bought some white keets. Some of them had a small dark dot located in the same place as yours are. They all turned out white. I had read somewhere that white keets can have that small dark head dot.

Pintos as far as I know are just an exaggerated pied with far more white than normal pieds. Pied genetics are mating two pieds together will create 50% pied, 25% solid color and 25% white keets.

Mating Pintos to each other or to Pieds should also create a 25% White outcome.

yup i know how the pieds work, i just wasnt sure about the pinto gene lol. thats super interesting, maybe there is 2 different genes for white in guineas like there is for chickens..? either way they are neat looking. did any of yours have a feather or 2 of color near the oil glands that you remember? Im not sure how much you know of genetics in geese but i do know that the white in autosexing geese will sometimes make males that are all white except for a few colored feathers in the same area. genetics are really interesting to me and i know geese, ducks, rabbits etc well, just not guineas(yet) haha

 

[janessakeen]

my only other guess was that maybe the pinto gene can(or maybe pieds too) can make whites that are "missing" small portions of the white or that they are pintos genetically but just have a very extreme amount of white on them. Im curious to see what genders they are and see if I can breed them together and see what they produce......the way i see it, knowing i had about 50% eggs from each mother, the pied babies should be from the buff mother. so maybe pinto only needs one gene to express and pinto x pinto can give a double pinto that is white like these are with the dots on heads......hopefully more people see this and i get more opinions because it may just be odd luck that I have never seen/had any whites with dots on heads before, or it may be something to look into for those trying to breed if that is a trait of ones that have pinto genes vs pied......

 

[janessakeen]

taken today.....theyve grown a bit more and they have a couple "off colored" feathers that are not white, but not full color either. More of a washed out pearl that is in the center of the feathers but white edges. hard to see colors accurately in pics since we had to use flash :/

 

[R2elk]

yup i know how the pieds work, i just wasnt sure about the pinto gene lol. thats super interesting, maybe there is 2 different genes for white in guineas like there is for chickens..? either way they are neat looking. did any of yours have a feather or 2 of color near the oil glands that you remember? Im not sure how much you know of genetics in geese but i do know that the white in autosexing geese will sometimes make males that are all white except for a few colored feathers in the same area. genetics are really interesting to me and i know geese, ducks, rabbits etc well, just not guineas(yet) haha

I would not try to apply geese genetics to guineas. One of the people writing on guinea color genetics tried to make the implication that white in guineas worked similarly to white in pea fowl. As far as I have been able to tell, it does not work the same as pea fowl.

Most of the good guinea color genetics information was never put back on the Internet after the change in how the Internet works. There is very limited good guinea color genetics available now. From other claims about how guinea color genetics work, my opinion is that there is very little guinea color genetic information available that is 100% correct.

They claim that they have a recessive white in Australia but even that claim has not been shown to be anything more than one breeder's claim.

You can try contacting the Guinea Farm to see if they are willing to share the information about how Pintos work genetically. They were the first source of Pintos that I am aware of.

 

[janessakeen]

I would not try to apply geese genetics to guineas. One of the people writing on guinea color genetics tried to make the implication that white in guineas worked similarly to white in pea fowl. As far as I have been able to tell, it does not work the same as pea fowl.

Most of the good guinea color genetics information was never put back on the Internet after the change in how the Internet works. There is very limited good guinea color genetics available now. From other claims about how guinea color genetics work, my opinion is that there is very little guinea color genetic information available that is 100% correct.

They claim that they have a recessive white in Australia but even that claim has not been shown to be anything more than one breeder's claim.

You can try contacting the Guinea Farm to see if they are willing to share the information about how Pintos work genetically. They were the first source of Pintos that I am aware of.

thanks, i wasnt trying to apply geese genetics to guineas lol, just pointed out that geese have white that can leave color near the oil glands like this and was wondering if there was a known gene in guineas as well. i have not been able to find much while searching online unfortunately........i will contact guinea farm and see what they say about it. I know a lot of people say that pinto and pied are essentially the same, but from ones ive bred and my own observations, that doesnt appear to be true. but i dont have a ton of guineas to really test my theories on either lol