guinea color ?

[kfacres]

We have a mixed set of mutt guineas and usually have no idea what to expect when the babies hatch... You know, pied of every color, pearl, white, lavendar, brown, purpleish...etc...

however, this year, I've got a new one. Is this a chocolate? Is chocolate a solid color, or does it have the white specks on the feather like a pearl?

I've decided to keep this as my new lead male- just to propagate more of them. I think it's a neat color, and might prefer it over many of the others. The whites just seem so predator likely- and the pearls are just bland.

 

[BreezeCrestChickens]

Its not a solid white? I've always been told that the white ones (not sure if they were meaning albino white or just white) were very hard to find and very expensive to buy! You may have a unique money bird!!! Haha! Just not sure too if they had the speckles or not. I'll have to look into that myself! Neat looking! Do you have white ones? Or were the parents just normal colored fowl?

 

[kfacres]

Quote:
We have had several solid white birds over the years, but they do not seem to last very long. The whites we have had, do not have white spots ontop of white backgrounded feathers. Honestly, I have been breeding away from white, and butchering as many of them as I can find- they are not very predator proof. Maybe if we penned the old guinea birds up at night, it would be different; but for the most part they fend for themselves and roost in trees. My parent's don't have a bird house, and the bird either roost in the shed, or in the trees... maybe that's why we've got some predator losses- despite 3 LGD's.

This bird, is not white, sorry but I've only brought these two up to my new house for our flock's foundation- so I don't have a white bird to compare it to side by side. I also don't know exactly which parents this bird hailed from- as mom's mature flock consists of plenty of colors. This bird is more of a brown color, with two shades of brown/b]- white speckles on top of the brown background. It's hard to tell the exact brown color, and I've never had a guinea of this color. I think last year, we had a matching pair of pied brown colored birds, but they were the first to disapear.

In the rear of one picture, is a chicken with white on it, to compare it to. here's one more picture standing next to a plywood nesting box, and a chicken.

 

[BreezeCrestChickens]

Ah ok I see now! Yeah its like chocolatey speckled weird looking thing now isn't it!?!?! Pretty none the less! I can't say I've ever seen one that color but all the ones we have are the browny grey and speckled traditional ones

 

[kfacres]

One thing I remember, is that on our white birds, their head is colored the same, as the body.. notice on this bird, that is not the case.
it's not a lavendar either, as they have more of a blueish or purpleish tint, but don't have one to compare it with in a picture either.

 

[AquaEyes]

It's nothing that's terribly rare or impossible to get in a mixed flock of guineas -- simply one of the diluted and dotted colors that's also split for white, hence the white patches. I'm not sure on the color -- opaline, maybe? I'm still learning myself.

 

[PeepsCA]

That's a Buff Dundotte male, fully pearled. A Chocolate is much darker, with only partially pearling.

If that Pearl Grey Hen is his only mate, you will most likely end up with Pearl Grey keets... but it all depends on the hidden recessive color genes she and the male are carrying, you could end up with a few Buff Dundottes and a few other colors in each hatch also since they both came from a multi-colored flock. Pearl Grey is dominant tho.

Pure Whites are a result of a Pied breeding with another Pied, or a pure White breeding with a Pied, or 2 pure Whites breeding with each other. You should not get any Pieds or Whites from that pair of birds.

Pure Whites are rare in Australia due to their Pied and genes working differently over there, but pure Whites are very common in the US. I hatched about 50 this year. And yes they are more prone to being taken by predators first... but so are all of the light colors (Buff Dundotte included).

 

[AquaEyes]

Peeps, you don't see the patches of white on the bird? I did...and this led me to think the bird is split to white.

 

[kfacres]

I'm the owner, and I've never seen any white patches on him.

The pearl color is dominate huh? Does that matter if it's pied or not? I've always thought that pied was dominate- since about 75% of our keets hatched out every year are pied of some color or another.

As far as I know, both come from a crazy colored, mixed up flock. But yes, at this time, they are my only 2 guineas. I may bring up another hen sometime from my parent's place, or try to add in some outcross genetics.

Do you have any more knowledge available online somewhere about guinea colors and patterns? Other than the mating of two parents of two different colors- and expecting offspring from those two colors, is there anything else out there that could pop up? You know, like the blue gene in chickens?

How do you pronouce this dundotte? is this a distinct color pattern, or a dilution of the chocolate pattern? I'm guessing 'fully pearled', refers to the white speckling? I've had birds in the past that only have this on part of the body.. If I remember right, they were more purple in color than a grey pearl- and if I'm also correct- they were pied..> like I said, almost all of our chicks are always pied.
Thanks tot he both of you!

 

[PeepsCA]

Quote:
No... I just see a Buff Dundotte, lol. And plus there's no white flight feathers (not visible anyway). "Split to white" is a term more so used for other types of poultry... with Guineas if they have white on the chest and white flight feathers... they are just Pied, lol.