Shell color (General Discussion)
I have to ask...hopefully somebody knows??
Does the shell color indicate the color of the keet in the egg??
Or could a, for example white keet come from both a white egg and a darker egg ??
Hope you understand the question.
From my experience it has no bearing, some of my pearls lay very different color eggs.
We haven't have the pleasure of our own eggs yet, so he was just wondering.
I have had pearls from spotted eggs and white or opaline from white eggs but I haven't been able to prove any corolation between egg and keet color. To disprove maybe the fact that most of my guinea eggs are a light brown or cream colored regardless of the adults characteristics. Maybe there is a connection from both parents as to egg color
All I know - and it ain't much...
...from my limited experience:
We ordered 3 colors of Guineas (in eggs): Pearl Gray, Coral Blue, and Buff Dondotte.
The Pearl Gray were light and dark color on the shell, the Buff Dundotte were all very dark on the shell, and the Coral Blue all had very light color shells.
That was just 12 eggs each.
The funny things was, I wanted to give each color a good chance to hatch and distributed them evenly in the bator (not all colors to one side, in case the bator had temp differences, etc.) and in order to keep track I marked them with pencil: pearl gray = G, coral blue = C, and buff dondotte = B.
When I called the Winters later about something else, I happened to ask about the egg colors, too, and I had it all wrong: I had marked the dark eggs Pearl Gray, the mixed ones Coral Blue, and the light ones Buff Dundotte - shows you what my guesses are worth, he he.
But the Winters said the light eggs would be the Coral Blues and they were right. And the dark ones turned out to be Buff Dundotte and the mixed ones Pearl Gray.
Interesting question would be: what if you get a one color keet from another color hen? Would the shell color reflect the keet color or the hen color? Ahhhh - my brain just fried - LOL
My hatching season is over, but next year I'd be willing to keep track of the colors of the eggs and keets. I can't believe that there isn't some research on this.
There has to be some significance of the color variation. If they are all eating the same food, and other mutual factors, why is there such a large variety of colors.
I have a forum related to a university extension service that I belong to. I'll see if I can find some info. There are a lot of geneticists on that forum.
This issue has always bugged me!
When my guineas were laying, I used to notice...
..the colors of their eggs. Most of the time, the egg colors would be consistent and I could tell which hen laid which egg not only by its color but especially by its shape. Every so often one of the hens would lay a white or very light colored egg. It was my understanding that the shell color has something to do with the blood chemistry of the hen that laid the egg. A very white egg could come from an anemic hen. I don't think it has anything to do with the color of the potential keet that could be developing inside.
One of my hens did lay eggs on a regular basis that were lighter in color than the others. All of my hens were pearl grays, but the one that laid the lighter colored eggs had a couple of white wing feathers. She was the only one that had white feathers, and I thought it was interesting that she was the only one who laid very light colored eggs.
Sounds good, Heritage Hens