AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Thanks for the welcome!

Hm... So a descriptive name for a type of feathering pattern in keets is not allowed because it could be misleading? (I'll call it a pattern rather than a phenotype - I erroneously assumed that phenotype meant how the keet looks ) While the breeder here who originally called keets in that pattern TBs was only describing pearl gray keets, there are many breeders over the past few years that have hatched out TBs in a number of different colors, mostly fully pearled varieties. I feel it is a helpful term that describes a feathering pattern. Surely nobody thinks that their keets will grow up to be teddy bears! You guys are funny. This is something new here in the U.S. In years past, many of these same breeders (some being very long-time breeders) had never seen a keet with that pattern before other than one that would result in a pied adult, so it was almost a necessity to have a name for the pattern so that it could be recognized and discussed. Perhaps it should be called a teddy bear patterned keet rather than a teddy bear keet. Don't worry... I'm sure that nobody here is going to start calling these keets TBs. And after reading my post and reading the responses I'm going to get, I'm sure that nobody (not even newbies) would even dare! It's okay. I'm not trying to push for the name - just trying to relay honest information about why we use it here. Also, we don't need to worry about anyone trying to sell a keet for a high price here. We have so many different colors and patterns that none of them are being sold for much more than the rest.

Now calling a keet a penguin would definitely be misleading here in the U.S. There is an article in the Journal of Heredity that describes a "penguin" guinea fowl, one that is missing its tail and flight feathers. Apparently this is a genetic defect.

I also feel that the pearled neck pattern and the solid neck color are just natural variations of the wild type pattern. I don't see any connection with mutations either, although I'm not sure I can rule that out. There is so much we don't know about how genetics works in guineas.

I didn't know that you have solid colors other than white in Australia. I did know about the white, but I forgot. again - this really is getting embarrassing! It will be interesting to see if those colors can also produce keets in the pattern I'm talking about (see... I can restrain myself from actually saying it!)

(Does this mean I will be talked about in the GG Forum? )

Just wanted to add that I don't think the patterning on these keets makes them look like teddy bears either, although I'm sure they must have looked like little stuffed bears to the breeder's two little daughters who originally called them that!

Thanks for the detailed reply and well written.

On a minor point you wrote -Quote- Hm... So a descriptive name for a type of feathering pattern in keets is not allowed because it coult be misleading? -end quote- its no a feathering pattern its a downing pattern and more times than not the downing colour and or pattern is vastly different to the feather pattern of the actual plumage. On the point of phenotype this is usually referred to when plumage is present in either juvenile or adult but not chicks because they have no feathering/plumage as you know. From our persecutive we see no need for such a term to be used and you maybe surprise that some around the world may start to believe "teddy bear" guinea fowl exist, stranger things have happened.

I promise if your mentioned in GG it will be mostly good

Shot down again. HaHa. Downing pattern. Okay, I'll agree to that. I still think it is useful to predict what color and pattern will be revealed when the keet is grown. Maybe when Australia has as many colors and patterns as we have here, Australian breeders will come up with better ways than U.S. breeders have to identify all of them as keets. I think I'm going to start referring to those keets as keets with the teddy bear downing pattern. I'm going to bite my tongue every time I start to say teddy bear keets. It will be hard to do, but I think I can do it.

(Please don't be too hard on me in GG! I'm really not a bad person.)

"teddy bear downing pattern" better

I am sure you are a nice person

Pearl keet and pearl pied keet even better IMO

Indeed as we call them

I find the US colour chart of colour to have colour so similar to each other they virtually look the same but have different names like Light Lavender? I say that one because our lavenders vary in shades but we don't use different names they are all just lavender, many blueish colours look the same? I wonder if that list could be shrunk to make it easier for breeder over there.?

I found the same not sure if its just the pictures or if some are just 2 shades light and given a different name?

Some of the named colors do vary in tone, so I know it can be confusing. It's confusing to me, too! The chart at the Guinea Fowl International website just goes by what the main hatcheries call the colors. We don't make the names up ourselves. I agree that it would be easier (and probably even more accurate) to have one name for each color range and then just add light, medium, or dark to the name to differentiate between the different color tones. I do think it's appropriate to separate pearl, semi-pearl, and non-pearled colors, though. If you just look at the chart without enlarging the photos (all can be enlarged by clicking on them) a lot of the colors do look the same. However, when you enlarge the photo, it's usually easy to see the subtle differences.