Very unusual chick, Guinea / chicken hybrid!!

[scriptkiddieJR]

Well I've been so busy in the last few weeks with the festive season and all but things have finally settled down. Breeding season has come to a hault for my ducks and my peacocks have dropped their trains awaiting the next breeding season! Guineas are still laying like mad and I have 45 new keets to keep me busy

I set a heap more eggs but no more hybrids

So it makes these 2 extra special. The guinea hen hasn't been mating with guinea males as all her eggs have been clear. The hybrids continue to grow and are looking very unique indeed here are some pics taken a while back I must get some new pics of them to show you how big they are now.

my, they sure are turning into something else

 

[Naturegirl44]

My girl is old though!! I am not sure how long they live but she is at least 5 years old It would be awesome to get a hybrid!! but right its -16c and we are only getting about 3 eggs a day from our ladies. We have no extra light or things that would keep them laying in the winter as we want them to just follow the natural way of the world

 

[Kev]

Thanks for the update! Cool birds of course. Does it look like one is male and the other female?

I wonder if the infertility could be a result of the immune system being too good at clearing the 'exotic' sperm..?

 

[ColesCreek]

Good luck with that

Thank you

 

[ColesCreek]

Coincidentally enough I have seen a hen-raised turkey tom kept in a cage with a sebright hen, and the cage was literally a meter and a half square. He didn't try anything. She would have weighed as much as half his neck, there is absolutely no way she could have survived being mounted. Mating would not occur. Just crushing. She was possibly the best sebright hen I have ever seen, too bad her owner didn't appreciate her. Not that he was a bad sort, lol, just focused on breeding to eat, not to propagate and preserve good genetics. She'd been given to him, not his choice of bird. 

If a male doesn't view a female as a mate, in the vast majority of cases mating will not happen, even if you confine them in a tiny cage with one another. You're better off, it seems, to raise a male under a female of the species you hope to cross to, and keep him with females of that species all his life so when his mating instincts kick in, all the females he has access to are of the species you want to cross to. It's always better to have the male be the smaller species. Dead females do not lay eggs, being the main reason why. 

Also, a turkey tom who finds chicken hens attractive is nothing but a nuisance. He'll cost you hens on a regular basis until you separate or cull him. You are far better off with trying to ensure that you have a sebright rooster who is attracted to turkey hens, not a turkey tom attracted to sebright hens. With such an extreme size difference AI may be your best bet, really. 

Best wishes to all. Love the hybrid's look. Keen to see how it goes.

I have them locked up together in a very small cage to force mating like bemba does with all his fowls so hoping to get some fertile eggs soon. I have 2 other backup sebright hens just incase

 

[ColesCreek]

Even if he inseminated the sebright hen with turkey semen I doubt if the resulting chick would survive developement and hatching.

I believe they will as turkeys have mated with chickens before I am trying it the natural way right now but if not I will look at A.I as I want all hybrids like bemba, a yard full of them would be good

 

[ColesCreek]

It is indeed very, very unlikely. But I have seen two different chicken X turkey hybrids; (you can probably find one on Feathersite) so obviously it is possible, with or without AI.

Yep its more than possible there's a few on the inernet. I think the trick is to do what bemba does with all his or her fowls and keep them in very small cages and eventually they will have to mate maybe takes 2 or 3 years but wortth the wait to breed hybrids as we all love them so much here

 

[Kev]

Yep its more than possible there's a few on the inernet. I think the trick is to do what bemba does with all his or her fowls and keep them in very small cages and eventually they will have to mate maybe takes 2 or 3 years but wortth the wait to breed hybrids as we all love them so much here

Good information for chicken turkey hybrids at this link- afaik ALL turkey-chicken hybrids have been result of AI. Also really important to read the part about turkey sperm....

 

[ColesCreek]

Thanks Kev I will check that out. I see your avatar is a pheasant by the looks do you hybrid them? I was thinking of that as my next project? pheasant x guinea fowl

 

[bemba]

My girl is old though!! I am not sure how long they live but she is at least 5 years old It would be awesome to get a hybrid!! but right its -16c and we are only getting about 3 eggs a day from our ladies. We have no extra light or things that would keep them laying in the winter as we want them to just follow the natural way of the world

She;s still a spring chicken

definitely got some years left ahead of her