Category: Guinea fowl

Morning anxiety spike

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Point one: it is unseasonably chilly here.

Point two: the old house does not have central heating and air.

Point three: the incubator and brooder are in the back bedroom, closed off from the main space heated/cooled by ductless unit.

Point four: when I entered the kitchen to make my tea this morning, the oven clock blinking alerted me there had been a power outage while I slept. I have no way of knowing how long the power was out.

Point five: getting chilled is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a baby keet so young.

Point six: I realized I had not heard peeping from the other room while waking up.

HAPPY OUTCOME: all the keets are fine, and seem comfortable and unstressed. So I suspect the outage was brief.

Welcome, Keet Four

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Now we are four.

Keets #4 (left), 2 (middle), and 3 (right)

This one hatched while I was in a meeting and I found a little blood around the incubator, apparently from its cord.

The bleeding had already stopped by the time I discovered the keet, but I have moved #2 and #3 to the brooder so they will not be tempted.

#1 seemed momentarily territorial about the brooder, but then all three started pecking at each others’ toes. They seem to have lost interest. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Guinea fowl color genetics

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Some of my most memorable early academic meltdowns included memorizing multiplication tables and deciphering Punnett squares, so I get a little nervous when genetics comes up.

Luckily the Guinea Fowl Calculator exists.

Given the known stable relationships among my birds, it looks like I have a good chance of having all pearl gray keets. I think my pearl grays are very pretty, but this is also kind of disappointing, because the range of colors out there is so interesting. I better invest in some more colored leg bands!

I also find it neat how guineas seem to like difference. None of the four coral blues wants to get with other coral blues. The two pied royal purples don’t hang out together. The pearl grays and pied pearl grays are not with other pearl grays.

Lazarus (male, coral blue) + Bucket (female, pearl gray)

Chickweed (male, coral blue) + Iris (female, pearl gray)

  • 100% chance Pearl Gray

Weddy (male, pied pearl gray) + Zipper (female, pied royal purple)

  • 50% chance Pied Pearl Gray
  • 25% chance Pearl Gray
  • 25% chance White

Boris (male, pied royal purple) + Chestnut (female, pearl gray)
Grimace (male, pied Pearl Gray) + Piper (female, coral blue)
Grimace (male, pied Pearl Gray) + Clementine (female, coral blue)
Weddy (male, pied pearl gray) + Kernel (female, buff dundotte)
Weddy or Grimace (both male, pied pearl gray) + Inkpot (female, royal purple)

  • 50% chance Pearl Gray
  • 50% chance Pied Pearl Gray