help: chick hatched today on day 24 and partially bald!!

[Silattahoe]

Hi all - this is our first time incubating chicks - after candling, we saw that 11 of the 12 were viable. Then on day 21 nothing pipped or hatched. I thought they had died. Then on day 22 came out a very healthy young chick. On day 23 another healthy hatched. In the night to day 24, one hatched with splayed legs (I followed the instructions and put a bandaid on - now it's sitting correctly - hopefully the legs will grow correctly). And then just now, on day 24, another one hatched but it has no feathers around it's neck and chest!! I have googled around but couldn't find anything about this. The chick seems healthy, very alert, and has feathers all over the rest of the body and the top of it's head, but pink bald skin on neck on chest. What is this? And is there anything I should do?? Thanks!!

 

[SierraView]

If it's a silkie the one with no fluff on the neck would be a showgirl silkie. They are very cute nothing at all wrong with it, thats what they should look like.

 

[Oceanseve]

You sure it's not a naked necker? It may not be this particular kind and I've seen chicks with a lot less fluff around their neck than this example

https://www.backyardchickens.com/products/naked-neck-turken

 

[Silattahoe]

Thanks for the info - it makes me feel so much better to know that there are chickens without feathers around the neck! I will look into Silkies and Naked-Neckers right now.
FYI - the farm that gave us the eggs has all kinds of chickens and they all (about 200) run freely around, so they could mate with whatever breed. I am pretty sure they had Silkies as well. It'd be nice to have a Silkie since my name is Silke

 

[stoopid]

He should be fine, if you cross a naked neck with a silkie, you get what's called a showgirl.
You could have one of those in the mix, and there are threads for them all.

 

[Silattahoe]

Hm, now I just found that Showgirl Silkies always have dark skin. My guy (or girl) has bright pink skin!

 

[featherz]

If it's a mix, could have any color skin. Definitely sounds like a naked neck or Showgirl (naked neck silkie). They are awesome!

 

[AinaWGSD]

The gene responsible for the naked necks appearance is dominant, meaning it only takes one copy of that gene for chicks to have no feathers on their neck. If one of this chick's parents was a naked neck with two copies of the naked neck gene and the other one was any other breed, then all of the chicks those two birds produce would have naked necks. One parent may have been a naked neck, and the other one could be a barred rock, silkie, brahma, orpington, or any other breed. Sometimes silkie mixes can have light colored skin, but more often they have very dark skin (and five toes and feathered legs). So my guess would be that your little bald chick is a naked neck or a naked neck crossed with some breed other than silkie.

So it may not be a showgirl. Which isn't quite what you get when you cross a naked neck with a silkie anyway, at least not the first generation, because the gene that causes silkies to have those soft fluffy feathers is recessive to the normal feathering gene so any time you cross a silkie with a non-silkie feathered bird all of the chicks will have normal looking feathers. Showgirls have no neck feathers and the fluffy silkied feathers of a silkie. The first generation cross of a naked neck and a silkie will give you all normal feathered birds with no neck feathers. If you take those normal feathered birds, which have one copy of the recessive gene for silkied feathers and one gene for naked neck, and breed them together then you will get some chicks with naked necks/normal feathers and some chicks with silkie feathers/feathers on their neck and some chicks with normal feathers that also have feathers on their neck and some chicks that have both the naked neck and the silkied feathers. Of that mix of chicks, the ones with the silkied feathers and naked necks are usually called "showgirls."