What color will these Guineas be when they grow up?

[hennypenny99]

I bought some keets yesterday and I hatched out some of my own. Mine look to be hatching out Pear & Pied possibly.

Does anyone know what these solid brown keets are? In this picture there is one by the feeder, one by the lavendar (correct me if that isn't lavendar) and one on the right side by the board. They have a white underbelly.

Also do some of those appear pied to you or are they plain old pearls? I have all pied males but my females are plain old pearl.

Thanks!



Here is another pic, you can see their faces better in this one.


The guy I bought them from said he thought the brown ones were French Guineas.... do they look different?

 

[GuineaLady93]

Here's what I see.

 

[PeepsCA]

I agree with Ash's ID on colors... and I think I can see some Pied Pearl Greys in the far back corner, can't see their head stripes tho. They could be more Teddy Bears. All of my keets with Teddy Bear markings (solid colored down) grown a few white flight feathers and a splash of white feathers on their chest when mature (which is what I refer to as lightly or slightly Pied).

Be careful about raising young keets on shavings, they can eat them and die from getting impacted. Straw, well textured paper towels or rubberized shelf liner all work great for me for young keets.

 

[hennypenny99]

Thanks guys very much. I have never even heard of a teddy bear guinea. I will have to go look them up. I was using shavings because they poop so much and it's easy to just add another layer of shavings to make it clean again. Actually I think it's the ducks making the biggest mess. I can probably find some old hay to use instead though. I was worried about them eating it. I hatched my own blue or lavender chick uuuhhumm keet this morning. I will take a pic of it because I am not sure what color it is. I don't have any lavender adults. I have Pearl males and one Buff male and then my females are pearl, and violet. Thanks!

 

[PeepsCA]

Teddy Bear keet, not Guinea. "Teddy Bear" is just a term some breeders have coined for the pattern of the keets' down, which is usually a wider middle head stripe with just one thin tan stripe at the outer edge (if visible), and more of a blended/mottled body color all over (except the belly) rather than the normal 2 tone striped pattern for fully pearled keets. They will feather out as normal looking slightly Pied Pearl Greys (like I said, usually with white flight feathers and a splash on the chest).

The width of the head stripe can vary, depending how Pied the keet is. Sometimes there won't be a thin stripe at all on the sides of the head. The slightly Pied keets that are mostly brown with just a little white on the sides of the face and wingtips are the keets that were first called Teddy Bear keets, but the term refers to all keets hatched with solid (blended/mottled) down pattern, regardless of color (not to be confused with the non-pearled varieties like violet, copper, slate, pewter etc that are complete void of all stripes as keets). Once the TB keets lose their head fuzz you can't tell they ever hatched any different looking than a Pied Pearl Grey keet that hatched with normal markings (same with the other fully pearled colors that hatch with TB patterned down like Lavender, Cinnamon, Buff Dundotte etc).

I have yet to come across a clear explanation of why it happens, but IMO the Pied gene plays a part in it, because that pattern only shows up in my flocks that contain Pied breeding stock.