What Have I Got Here?

[millebantam]

Okay, my two hens went off to nest a while back and one returned with 8 keets and the other with 16 10 days later. One hen is a lavender, but I'm not sure on the other one. I thought she was a coral blue, but I'm not sure since her feathers appear washed out and she is pretty much 2 tone light blue without any spots. The father is white. All of the keets now travel around mixed together with both mothers as a group. All of the keets also appear to be pied. Here's a couple of pics.

 

[PeepsCA]

The keets are all Pied because the father is White. Any solid (non-Pied) Guinea bred with a pure White Guinea usually produces 100% Pied keets.

But why you have all Pied Pearl Grey keets, instead of any that are the colors of your 2 pretty Hens is a head scratcher to me, lol. I don't see one light colored keet, and that's SO odd! I guess it's possible that all 3 adults are split to Pearl Grey (so their Pearl Grey genes hooked up to produce mostly Pied Pearl Grey keets) and either the eggs that had light keets in them didn't hatch or were already picked off by predators by the time the Hens came home with the keets, or maybe the adults killed them because they looked so different from the rest

I am not sure color what your other Hen is, (I'm stumped!). I do see some blue coloring on her lower breast area, but the rest of her looks to be some variation of tan... never seen a Hen like that before! Unless she's just a crazy dust bather and is dirt stained and sun-faded, she may be a Lite Blue, a shade lighter than the Coral Blue, (some times my Lite Lavender Hens get a creamy (or dirty) and sun-faded coloration over their backs making them appear 2-toned). Does this Hen have any pearling or barring on her lower flank areas and on her wing feathers at all? If she doesn't then I'd have to guess that she's a dirt stained sun-faded Powder Blue lol.


I am still scratchin' my head wondering why you don't have any light colored Pied keets in those hatches, lol.
Anyway congrats on your cute little family!

Beautiful Rooster too btw

 

[millebantam]

Thanks Peeps. Well, I'm pretty sure that there were no other lighter colored keets hatched. I found the nest of the lavender hen while she was setting, and she had 8 eggs under her and all of them hatched. The other hen showed up with 16, so I can't imagine her having hatched out many more. The strange colored hen has no sign of spots or pattern on her anywhere. Also, it would be an incredible coincidence if all of the adults were split to pearl gray since I 've had the white male around here as a loner for 3 years, and the 2 hens were given to me in March of this year from a totally different source than the male. For whatever reason, it looks like I'll have an army of pied pearl gray guineas runnin' around here.

Again, thanks a million for taking the time to answer my question about these critters.

 

[southern oaks]

that is an odd thing. Not that I know much. but just what i have been getting in mine. Peeps in the first pic the one at the very bottom of the page almost looks royal. look at that one a little closer and see wht you think????

 

[PeepsCA]

Quote:
Wow that's still so odd... somebody, (either both of the Hens, or the male) are/is carrying some really strong hidden Pearl Grey genes! Now if these keets breed next season (either with each other or any of the parent birds) you should get a few assorted colors, lots of Pieds, some pure Whites, and maybe even a few new colors that you don't have already! (Violets, Copper, Slate, Pewters, Powdered Blues etc).


Quote:
It couls be, but I think I still see a wide head stripe, so I'm still guessing that one's just a very Pied Pearl Grey keet... sometimes my Pied PGs are white allllllll the way up to the shoulders just like RPs, so I have to go by head markings, and when they are really Pied like that sometimes you just don't have much to go by up there!

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
How adorable.... Looks like that Roo is keeping a good eye out for em. Like an Uncle Buck Buck....

sorry I am stupid tired..... 120 mile road trips four days in a row.... I get the day off tomorrow than back again bringing up Hay....

I love how the momma Guineas share their baby duties....

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

I heard that Guineas didn't sit on their eggs? I heard they lay em and ditch em, but I dont have Guineas I have ducks so what do I know. but love the Guinea keets very cute

 

[PeepsCA]

Guineas will sit on their eggs and hatch them out IF they feel they are in a safe/secure/private enough spot. If they get bothered too much or spooked then yah, they will in a heart beat abandon their eggs... be it 3 eggs or 30 eggs. Can be very frustrating sometimes for those of us that need the dang Hen to brood a clutch for us!

 

[rollyard]

Try to look past the colour/pattern (no colour for white) & see all of your birds as Pearl Grey! For the white male (father); he could have other genes that modify his colour from Pearl Grey that we can't see, but he also has from my understanding two doses of an incompletely dominant gene (W/W) which either inhibits pigment production, or prevents the pigments produced from getting into the feather, hence a white bird. In one dose (W/w+), the gene for white inhibits pigmentation in some areas of the bird (possibly quite variable), hence the pied pattern of all your keets because they all inherited one dose of W from the father! We don't seem to have the same gene here in Oz, although we do have pied patterned birds.

The lavender female is lavender due to a recessive diluting mutation in pure form (l/l) which reduces the amount of dark pigment getting into the feather, so darker grey (eg Pearl Grey, Royal Blue) is reduced to lighter blue, ie, lavender. The other female (really have no idea about her colour) very possibly has lavender plus another modifying factor, maybe that for buff/dun for example, plus she doesn't have the pearling, so add two doses of recessive m/m.

Now why all Grey Keets? For the keets to be other then Grey they need to inherit other modifyers that will "modify" colour/patternof the Pearl Grey! If the modifying factor is a recessive, then they will need two doses, except if the recessive gene on the Z chromosome, in which case females only require the one (because females only have one Z chromosome). In your instance, it doesn't appear that your white male is carrying hidden recessive lavender because if he were carrying one dose only then approx 50% progeny produced from the white male & the lavender hen would be lavender. The same could be said for the other hen, ie, whatever factor/s have produced her colour are likely recessive, & the male doesn't carry them!

Remember, we start with a clean slate, ie, Pearl Grey bird, & other modifying factors are added to produce the colour/pattern we end up with