Guinea fowl are interesting birds to keep, and they are not hard to sex. However, many people have trouble telling the difference between male and female guinea fowl because their plumage is so similar. This blog post will tell you how to sex guinea fowl!
The problem with most birds is that it’s difficult to tell the difference between males and females.
In this article I’ll show you how easy it is to identify the sexes of these beautiful birds by using some simple techniques!
Sexing a Day Old Guinea Fowls
Using stretched leg technique you can sex a day old guinea fowls.
If you grab the bird from above, and you see that the legs are hanging down, it’s a female, if the legs are not-stretched it’s a male.
This technique works better in sexing turkey poults, a day old guinea fowl are difficult to sex, and waiting until your birds are 8 weeks old will give you a better idea of whether they are male or female.
Sexing Guinea Fowl By Wattles
When Guinea fowls are 4 months old, the males have cupped wattles that are at 90 degree angle to the side of their upper jaw.
Females have flat wattles that attach to their upper jaw.
If your guinea fowl are still very young (e.g., < 4 months old), then this method won’t work for identifying males/females.
However, once the birds are around 4 months old, this and all of the bellow methods should be reliable!
Male Vs Female Guinea Fowl: Sexing by the Helmet Thickness
The helmets can be seen to grow with age, so this is another way to tell the difference between male and female guinea fowl.
The helmet of a male guinea fowl is larger than the helmet on a female. Female Guinea fowls have a short, narrow helmet.
Sexing Guinea Fowls by Sound
The easiest way to tell the difference between males and females is by listening the sound they make.
There was even a study done to determine how to distinguish between male and female guinea fowl calls.
The study was made at the Faculty of Agriculture in Ghana.
It was observed that males make a sound like “kir ke ke ke ke” but females made a different sound like “chekwen chekwen” as reported in 2013. Another observation from 2015 supported this study.
Vent Sexing Guinea Fowls
Vent sexing male and female guinea fowl is a common way to determine the sexes in poultry. This method can be done by using a magnifying glass.
In poultry, vent sexing (also called cloacal sexing) involves holding your hand gently around the bird’s body so that the vent, or urogenital opening, is exposed.
Expose the cloacal area by gently holding each side of the bird’s body. You’ll notice that male guinea fowls have a bump (this is their p*nis) while females have none at four weeks of age.
This is not something easily seen though with novice keepers, so I would recommend only trying this after vent sexing ducklings for example.
You cannot sex guinea fowl by plumage, they look very similar, and you will have to look at a few other things, in order to distinguish the sexes.
Conclusion
It seems like there are many methods for determining the sex of guinea fowl.
A day old male and female guinea fowls are very difficult to sex, but there are several excellent methods for determining the difference.
I have presented some great ways to separate males and females of this type of poultry!
The problem is that it can be hard just by looking at them, which is why we need to know how to determine their sex.
There are several techniques you can use when trying to determine the difference between a male and female guinea fowl.
These include stretching the legs or examining the wattles or helmet thickness.
I think that the easiest way to determine the difference between a male and female guinea fowl is by listening for their sound.
