New Guinea - Hen (check), Breed/Color (undecided) - Anymore Help?

[Louieandthecrew]

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[philter4]

There are different species of guinea fowl, and even different "breeds" so to speak, wild guineas that have different subspecies or features are named by the country of origin and can be told apart easily, for instance Kenyan crested guinea is one of the different subspecies of Guttera pucherani. I keep both wild type helmeted and domestic helmeted (the wild type guineas are in FL and the domestic ones here in CA so they are separated so they wont interbreed) and vulturine guineas. The common or helmeted guinea fowl is the one that most people have and it comes in a variety of colors. the one in the photo you showed is a blue or sometimes called a white pearl. The "wild" type is a pearl, which is the dark grey to black with white spots. They are easily told apart from the domestic guinea by the colors of the skin and wattles, wild ones have a very deep blue skin and bright wattles while the domestic ones have a whitish or very light blue with wattles that can be any shade from pink to bright red.

The 6 species are:
White breasted guineafowl, Agelastes meleagrides
Black guineafowl, Agelastes niger
Helmeted guineafowl, Numida meleagris
Plumed guineafowl, Guttera plumifera
Crested guineafowl, Guttera pucherani-There are 2 different subspecies of this species
Vulturine guineafowl, Acryllium vulturinum

There are 3 species that are available to aviculturists commonly (although wild type helmeted, vulturines and crested guineas are very expensive) and every once in a while one of the others is offered. The domestic helmeted is the one that is offered for sale from most breeders and farms. While you can sometimes sex a guinea by the helmet size or wattles, that is not always reliable, especially in the wild types. The only way to sex vulturines is with a blood test. On helmeted the call is very distinctive, the male makes a single syllable call that is sort of a loud CHI-CHI-CHI and the female makes a two syllable KAYUK-KAYUK-KAYUK. Females sometimes try to imitate the males, but males never do a females call.

Males can sometimes be aggressive to chickens, but for me the females are picked on by my chickens, at least in my yard. I free range my guineas in CA with the chickens and my chickens are afraid of the male guineas but always dominate the females. I use the guineas as tick and pest control, they roam the property and eat all sorts of bugs and things and I have noticed on the dogs I rarely find a tick any more, and they leave the garden plants alone as long as the plants are established. I lost a bunch of carrots that were just sprouting until I put a piece of wire over them. Now that the carrot greens are bigger they ignore them but they love fresh shoots so if you garden watch out.

 

[CCourson05]

machine-gun staccato sound, though

That is exactly what mine sound like.

 

[Louieandthecrew]

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Thanks for the info!!

 

[casuarius]

I could tell its a hen from the pic, but the sun is hitting the body and its hard to tell anything except that its a pied of some sort. Maybe a lavender or coral blue pied. . does it have polka dots, and light blue coloration? if so, it's a lavender pied

 

[Louieandthecrew]

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Polka dots, no blue!

 

[PeepsCA]

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Ok, no blue... What about pale grey? (That's still considered a dilution of lavender (blue color gene), in Guinea colors). What color are the majority her polka dotted feathers? (We'll figure this out yet, lol).

She looks like a pied porcelain to me. Pretty bird!

 

[Louieandthecrew]

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Ok, no blue... What about pale grey? (That's still considered a dilution of lavender (blue color gene), in Guinea colors). What color are the majority her polka dotted feathers? (We'll figure this out yet, lol).

She looks like a pied porcelain to me. Pretty bird!

Thanks for the completment (to her

)! Her polka dots are pure white but around her wings and a bit of her body is more of a light cream color. I'm looking up a pied porcelain right now and she looks a lot like those but she looks more like an Opaline Guinea to me.

 

[lobo307]

hey terri, u still want some guineas?

 

[Louieandthecrew]

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Ah, what breeds do you have? I'm not looking for any at the moment, just want to be exposed to diferent kinds.