please post pictures of your guineas!!

[zazouse]

Quote:
What kind of incubator do you have? A Sportsman?

I've been looking into buying a Sportsman 1502, but I'm not fond of putting eggs on the wire mesh to hatch (the chicks that hatch first play soccer with the remaining eggs). I was wondering if it would work to move the entire rack of eggs down to the hatching tray to hatch (that way all of the eggs are held in place)? Is that what you did in the pic?

That is a LOT of Guinea eggs in that one pic!

Yes it is a sportsman 1502.
I leave them in the racks and place a towel down in the hatcher box to catch the babies that fall, they don't get hurt.
I have hatched with them out of the rack and i place shelf liner in the hatching trays.
I prefer hatching guineas in the racks but like to hatch chickens in the trays without the egg racks.

 

[Cowgirl71]

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Okay, thanks for the info!

Since you have a 1502, how do you like it? Simple and easy to use? Great hatch rates? How long does the hatch take (from the first chick hatching to the last chick hatching)? Do you have any complaints about the 1502?

 

[shelleyd2008]

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There are only two 'breeds' of guinea (jumbo and not-jumbo) but there are several varieties.

I have 1 pearl hen, 3 lavender, 2 buff dundotte, and 5 buff. Personally I don't mind the pearl but the other colors seem to sell better so I try to minimize the number of pearls in my flock. Pearl is dominant so if you have several pearl birds in your flock eventually you will have nothing but.

 

[Cowgirl71]

Quote:
There are only two 'breeds' of guinea (jumbo and not-jumbo) but there are several varieties.

I have 1 pearl hen, 3 lavender, 2 buff dundotte, and 5 buff. Personally I don't mind the pearl but the other colors seem to sell better so I try to minimize the number of pearls in my flock. Pearl is dominant so if you have several pearl birds in your flock eventually you will have nothing but.

http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/Picture151.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/Picture148.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/PICT0514.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/PICT0504.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/PICT0571.jpg

Yes, Pearl is dominant over all of the other colors, except for white. If you cross Pearls and Whites you get Pieds. If you cross a Pied with a Pied, you'll get roughly 1/4 Pearls, 1/4 Whites, and 1/2 Pieds. I'm currently trying to breed the white out of my flock (they're much more susceptible to predators). I sold my white male on Craigslist a few weeks ago. So I now currently have:

1 Lavender Pied male
1 Pearl Pied male
4 Pearl males
6 Pearl Pied hens
1 Pearl hen
1 Royal Purple hen

From these I should still get quite a few whites, but hopefully not as many as before when I had the white male. I'm planning to only keep Pearl keets this year and sell all of the "colorful" ones.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
There are only two 'breeds' of guinea (jumbo and not-jumbo) but there are several varieties.

I have 1 pearl hen, 3 lavender, 2 buff dundotte, and 5 buff. Personally I don't mind the pearl but the other colors seem to sell better so I try to minimize the number of pearls in my flock. Pearl is dominant so if you have several pearl birds in your flock eventually you will have nothing but.

http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/Picture151.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/Picture148.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/PICT0514.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/PICT0504.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/shelleyd2008/guineas/PICT0571.jpg

Yes, Pearl is dominant over all of the other colors, except for white. If you cross Pearls and Whites you get Pieds. If you cross a Pied with a Pied, you'll get roughly 1/4 Pearls, 1/4 Whites, and 1/2 Pieds. I'm currently trying to breed the white out of my flock (they're much more susceptible to predators). I sold my white male on Craigslist a few weeks ago. So I now currently have:

1 Lavender Pied male
1 Pearl Pied male
4 Pearl males
6 Pearl Pied hens
1 Pearl hen
1 Royal Purple hen

From these I should still get quite a few whites, but hopefully not as many as before when I had the white male. I'm planning to only keep Pearl keets this year and sell all of the "colorful" ones.

White does not make pied, the pied gene makes pied. On the guinea fowl international pages, there is some suggestion that pied birds are created by 1 dose of the pied gene AND white but that has yet to be proven.

 

[Cowgirl71]

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White does not make pied, the pied gene makes pied. On the guinea fowl international pages, there is some suggestion that pied birds are created by 1 dose of the pied gene AND white but that has yet to be proven.

Well, my neighbor (who started me in Guineas) started out with Pearls, Royal Purples, Lavenders, and Whites in 2006. We've been hatching lots of replacements from these birds and their progeny ever since. When we hatch eggs we get plenty of Pieds. I thought I had read somewhere online that Pearl Pied is made from Pearl x White...

I don't have it bookmarked though.

BTW, I have added new blood in my flock. I got five Pearl keets from the feed store a couple years ago. One didn't make it, but the other four are my Pearl roosters. However, I mostly hatch eggs from my neighbor, since he confines his birds until late afternoon, forcing them to lay in the nest boxes. Mine free range all over the ranch. Finding their eggs is like an advanced level Easter Egg Hunt.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
White does not make pied, the pied gene makes pied. On the guinea fowl international pages, there is some suggestion that pied birds are created by 1 dose of the pied gene AND white but that has yet to be proven.

Well, my neighbor (who started me in Guineas) started out with Pearls, Royal Purples, Lavenders, and Whites in 2006. We've been hatching lots of replacements from these birds and their progeny ever since. When we hatch eggs we get plenty of Pieds. I thought I had read somewhere online that Pearl Pied is made from Pearl x White...

I don't have it bookmarked though.

BTW, I have added new blood in my flock. I got five Pearl keets from the feed store a couple years ago. One didn't make it, but the other four are my Pearl roosters. However, I mostly hatch eggs from my neighbor, since he confines his birds until late afternoon, forcing them to lay in the nest boxes. Mine free range all over the ranch. Finding their eggs is like an advanced level Easter Egg Hunt.

Most likely some of the other colors 'carried' pied, I've seen it expressed very minimally with just a few white feathers on the breast. Of course I can't find the article I read on guineafowlinternational.org, but they think that pied works the same in guineas as it does in peafowl. In peafowl you have to have 1 pied gene and 1 white gene to get pied birds. A bird who has only one or the other will express with a few white flight feathers. (Correction: In peafowl, a bird with only 1 dose of pied does not express any visual signs of being pied. A bird with 2 doses of pied expresses with white flight feathers)

Ah, here it is http://www.guineafowlinternational.org/articles/genetics.php

 

[SuperPeacockman]

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Do you have any idea how many eggs you had in those pics?

 

[Cowgirl71]

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Very informative article, thank you.

Perhaps that's what's happening, IDK...

I think this is the link I was talking about: http://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/genetics/

It doesn't say that Pearl x White makes Pieds per se, but it does say that a bird with two copies is white, and since we were getting pieds from solid colored birds, I figured that was what was happening (I don't remember any of my neighbor's original birds having white wings/white feathers on the breast, but I suppose it is possible). I do have one Guinea hen that is quite unique. She's technically a Pearl Pied, but picture a Pearl Pied with a huge mottled Pearl patch on her breast. I don't have a picture of her, but from what I've been reading today, it sounds like she's kinda rare, and I should get a pic before a coyote gets her...

It sounds like either Pearl x White=Pied, or you need a Pied gene, with homozygous Pied birds being solid white. So I guess either way I'm glad I got rid of my solid white male. I'm looking forward to seeing what hatches this summer!

 

[zazouse]

Quote:
Okay, thanks for the info!

Since you have a 1502, how do you like it? Simple and easy to use? Great hatch rates? How long does the hatch take (from the first chick hatching to the last chick hatching)? Do you have any complaints about the 1502?

I love mine i have 3 ,it is plug and go but you can change settings with just a push of a button.
I had hatching boxes made for mine because i do not like the waxed black box and i would not buy the water resivor because it does not add the water fast enough durring hatch, i use a 1 inch hose with a funnel attached and fill the resivor threw the side hole on the inc..

You will not be sorry you purchased it, as long as you have enough to fill it up you can make money, i paid for each one of mine with 2 hatches .