Raising Guinea Fowl 101

[R2elk]

So I'm not sure what the pied guineas gender is but I think my solid 'mulberry' guinea is female but it regularly chases the other guineas which makes me think it's male but it has some feathers on its back missing from potential treading or just been pulled out. If lavender is recessive why when my lavender is mated to a pearl does it get majority lavender?

Your mulberry appears to be a Royal Purple. It is my belief that Royal Purples true color genetics has not bee sufficiently researched. I have a Royal Purple which based on its parentage has one recessive blue gene from its Coral Blue mother and one buff gene and a DSV (dark shade variance) gene from its Chocolate father which does not agree with stated dominant pearl gray gene which could have only occurred by a color gene mutation. I might have believed that in an isolated instance but that pair produced multiple Royal Purples along with a few chocolates.

For your Lavender and Pearl pair to produce mostly Lavender offspring would indicate that your Pearl has a recessive blue gene. Theoretical results are only that. If 100% of all the eggs hatch from a specific mating and enough eggs hatch the results will be very close to the theoretical percentages. The fewer eggs that hatch the more the theoretical percentages may be off from what actually is produced.

BTW your Royal Purple on top of the shelter sure looks like a male to me. If there are feathers broken off on the back area and in particular the upper wing feathers it would be because it is not the dominant male and is showing the effects of the dominant male breaking off its feathers.

Good luck.

 

[MeepBeep]

It is my belief that Royal Purples true color genetics has not bee sufficiently researched

I don't believe any of the color morphs in Guineas have been sufficiently researched yet...

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Then you get into the whole regional issues with terminology.

Just look at Austrailias beautiful Cinnamons.....

Red eyes and rich rust colored plumage with bright spots.

deb

 

[R2elk]

I don't believe any of the color morphs in Guineas have been sufficiently researched yet...

I do know that I can accurately predict what my three oldest Coral Blue hens and the two Coral Blue cocks will make when they breed with each other. Because their mother was a Lavender that had one full dotting gene and one no dotting gene and their father was a Coral Blue with two partial dotting genes and both the mother and father each had two blue color genes, all of the Coral Blues produced from that pairing received their mother's no dotting and their father's partial dotting gene and one blue color gene from each parent.

These Coral Blues can produce Coral Blue and Sky Blue offspring and have not produced any other kind of colors or dotting patterns..

 

[R2elk]

Then you get into the whole regional issues with terminology.

Just look at Austrailias beautiful Cinnamons.....

Red eyes and rich rust colored plumage with bright spots.

deb

If you follow the Guinea Fowl Forum they recently had a discussion about Cinnamon guineas and apparently at least one member on the east coast has Cinnamon guineas in the U.S.

 

[MeepBeep]

I don't believe any of the color morphs in Guineas have been sufficiently researched yet...

I do know that I can accurately predict what my three oldest Coral Blue hens and the two Coral Blue cocks will make when they breed with each other.  Because their mother was a Lavender that had one full dotting gene and one no dotting gene and their father was a Coral Blue with two partial dotting genes and both the mother and father each had two blue color genes, all of the Coral Blues produced from that pairing received their mother's no dotting and their father's partial dotting gene and one blue color gene from each parent.

These Coral Blues can produce Coral Blue and Sky Blue offspring and have not produced any other kind of colors or dotting patterns..

You have but a small sampling, can you confirm your observations hold true 100% of the time in other birds of the same color morphs? With the number of different color morphs that have appeared and continue to appear quire readily in a short period of time, I fully believe that there is no where near sufficient research on their color genes at this time to be 100% sure of the outcome...

 

[R2elk]

You have but a small sampling, can you confirm your observations hold true 100% of the time in other birds of the same color morphs? With the number of different color morphs that have appeared and continue to appear quire readily in a short period of time, I fully believe that there is no where near sufficient research on their color genes at this time to be 100% sure of the outcome...

I can confirm that any guineas that have these exact color and dotting genes (blue/blue and partial dotting/ no dotting) will produce exactly as predicted. There has been plenty of research done on the simple color schemes. It is the complex color schemes that have far too much guessing as well as whites where at least one person is trying to apply the observations of how white works in peafowl instead of observing what happens in guineas.

The dotting genes seem to also fall into the simple category as full dotting is dominant, partial dotting is recessive to full dotting and dominant over no dotting and no dotting is recessive to both full and partial dotting.

Complexities work their way in when dealing with multiple recessive color genes in conjunction with DSV and of course possible mutations.

http://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/genetics/

http://guineas.com/articles/genetics.php

http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/87/2/138.full.pdf

 

[Nickeyo]

Your mulberry appears to be a Royal Purple.  It is my belief that Royal Purples true color genetics has not bee sufficiently researched.  I have a Royal Purple which based on its parentage has one recessive blue gene from its Coral Blue mother and one buff gene and a DSV (dark shade variance) gene from its Chocolate father which does not agree with stated dominant pearl gray gene which could have only occurred by a color gene mutation.  I might have believed that in an isolated instance but that pair produced multiple Royal Purples along with a few chocolates.

For your Lavender and Pearl pair to produce mostly Lavender offspring would indicate that your Pearl has a recessive blue gene.  Theoretical results are only that.  If 100% of all the eggs hatch from a specific mating and enough eggs hatch the results will be very close to the theoretical percentages.  The fewer eggs that hatch the more the theoretical percentages may be off from what is expected.

BTW your Royal Purple on top of the shelter sure looks like a male to me.  If there are feathers broken off on the back area and in particular the upper wing feathers it would be because it is not the dominant male and is showing the effects of the dominant male breaking off its feathers.

Good luck.

Thanks for the information, seeing as your quite upto date with Guinea genetics, the female pearl that the lavender is paired with is quite fat compared to the other guineas and struggles to make it over a gate where as the others can all fly over the trees, this makes me believe it is a meat strain of Guinea as I bought it from someone along with 4 other guineas, 2 of which were also fat pearls and 2 were normal pearls unfortunately they were all very wild and managed to escape and were taken by a fox, she was the only remainder. So although it's not impossible I think it strange you would get a lavender meat bird but my main question is, will the off Spring be light and agile like the lavender or fat like her or somewhere in the middle?

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Oooooh....

hoping they will be more prevalent when i get back into them.

deb

 

[R2elk]

Thanks for the information, seeing as your quite upto date with Guinea genetics, the female pearl that the lavender is paired with is quite fat compared to the other guineas and struggles to make it over a gate where as the others can all fly over the trees, this makes me believe it is a meat strain of Guinea as I bought it from someone along with 4 other guineas, 2 of which were also fat pearls and 2 were normal pearls unfortunately they were all very wild and managed to escape and were taken by a fox, she was the only remainder. So although it's not impossible I think it strange you would get a lavender meat bird but my main question is, will the off Spring be light and agile like the lavender or fat like her or somewhere in the middle?

It does sound like you have a French Pearl guinea hen (bred to a larger size for meat) which were all Pearl guineas but I believe that they have managed to breed in the Lavender color recently. The genes that are related to the size of the guinea are not directly related to the color genes. Sometimes when you make hybrids, the resulting offspring are even bigger than either parent. Other times they end up being an in between size and in even other cases they can be smaller but that is rare. I believe that your crosses will most likely end up at a size that is in between the two parents.

Good luck.