Curling feathers on a Jersey giant chick

jrudd

In the Brooder
May 17, 2016
13
2
29
Hello,

I have a question regarding one of my Jersey Giant chicks from McMurray Hatchery. I ordered 15 straight run Jersey giant chicks, which are now a couple weeks old. One of them has the strangest curling wing feathers. Is this not a Jersey Giant or some sort of deformation?

1000
 
That is strange, it looks like it's frizzled. I suppose a JG could have frizzled feathers, it's a gene that's not dependent on breed, but my guess would be one of their frizzle roosters hopped its pen into the JG pen. Do you have any close ups of this chick?
 
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I guess I may have a decision to make. I am certain that over half the chicks are roosters, I could be wrong and time will tell but I only have 10 hens, so hals a dozen roosters will not work. I will eventually have to put the extra roosters up for sell and keep one or two. Should I keep the frizzled or try to sell it?
 
That depends on what you want. Do you like the looks of frizzles? If so, keep it. It's a dominant trait so half of all its offspring will hatch frizzled. If you were planning on sticking to purebred Giants and it's a cross, then you probably don't want it. However, it probably wouldn't matter much because since your stock is from a hatchery, they likely won't be meeting the breed standard since hatcheries don't select for those things so as long as you're just keeping and breeding them for yourself it wouldn't hurt to keep it.
 
a little hard to tell from the pics, not seeing the right angle yet.. but those feathers don't seem to be curling out in a frizzle fashion and some of the smaller feathers are not showing curl. On frizzles, every single feather shows a curl.

On a frizzle, the feathers are basically straight out with an outwards curl to the tip. This chick seem to have the main wing feathers growing sideways and upwards. More twisty than frizzly.

I'd say to wait and see how the body feathers grow.
 
a little hard to tell from the pics, not seeing the right angle yet.. but those feathers don't seem to be curling out in a frizzle fashion and some of the smaller feathers are not showing curl.  On frizzles, every single feather shows a curl.

On a frizzle, the feathers are basically straight out with an outwards curl to the tip.  This chick seem to have the main wing feathers growing sideways and upwards. More twisty than frizzly.

I'd say to wait and see how the body feathers grow.


Glad you popped in :) It did look weird to me. I would be really curious to see how it feathers out.
 

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