guineas, male or female?!

[kkm]

Hey, I was just wondering how you tell a male guinea(rooster?) from a female.

Mine are almost 3 months old and one has bigger waddles? than the other and a darker blue area under its neck. I know nothing,

any help? thanks, kkm

 

[MissPrissy]

Guineas are extremely hard to sex.

One of the best ways is to listen to them talk.

They both have a machine fire single syllable sound but females also make a 2 syllable sound like 'buck wheat'.

As they mature you can later try to tell them apart because the males helmet thingy is usually larger than the female.

Some say the female wattles face a different direction from the males but all of mine look exactly the same so that did not work at all for me.

 

[warcard]

Defintely the two-tone female call is the easiest discriminator.

My male's horn is often more upright versus more sloped back on the female, but it can be hard to tell.

 

[reallemons1]

I am the opposite. I tell mine by the size of the waddles and neck. Females necks are smaller and thinner than males. Males waddles are larger and thicker and stick out further than females. They can be hard to tell though.

 

[Saffy]

Darn if I know! I have ten guineas and don't have a clue who is who. I have been getting about 4 or 5 eggs a day from them, so I know some are girls! Hubby wanted to try one as he has never had guinea before but I'm scared he'll take one of the hens. To me they all look almost the same.

 

[goldensunriseranch]

I tell the guineas apart here by helmet and wattles. The males have a larger helmet and larger wattles that cup forward, and the hens have a more petite helmet & head and their wattles are smaller and not cupped forward.
And also the females buckwheat call is a give away if the wattles don't help.

 

[MissPrissy]

Quote:
None of my female, egg laying, guinea hens nor males have cupped opposite wattles. All wattles are the same.

Edited due to typing while talking to a 2 yr old

 

[goldensunriseranch]

Wow all the ones around here the males wattles are huge and cupped. I wonder what makes them so different. Maybe some breeders select that way, the breeders that sex that way look for males to have bigger wattles and then their offspring is the same and so on down that particular line, I would suppose anyway.

 

[MissPrissy]

Out of my last flock I have 3 males and 1 hen left and she is laying. She has the 2 syllable call but her wattles are cupped just like the males. The only way I know she is a hen without the egg laying is that she makes the 'buckwheat' call.

 

[goldensunriseranch]

Did some searching in my back posts, I had found these photos online before for a previous post where someone was looking to tell gender. These guys look like the ones here. Male above and female below, some of the males here have even larger wattles than this guy and are really obvious. Maybe they will help, but if they are the kind with no difference in wattles like Miss Prissy's then I guess the call would be the only way to tell until somebody lays some eggs! So I guess it depends where you got them from. These have been here so long I can't remember where they came from originally and my flock merged with my neighbor's flock making one huge mass of roaming guineas.

http://members.aol.com/CELESTmich/picscel/wattles.jpg
and
http://members.aol.com/celestmich/picscel/henncock.jpg