Non-poly jersey giantXcubalaya makes polydactyl babies?

[irradiatedsnakes]

Had a surprise when a blue jersey giant hen of ours who, for the last few weeks, we thought was dead turned up hiding with 4 happy day-old chicks! I'm posting a general help/advice post about this event in the raising chickens forum, but here I have a genetics question. The parents are a black-breasted red cubalaya roo and a blue jersey giant hen, neither of which have polydactyly- yet, at least a significant proportion of the babies (don't have exact numbers for you because of Circumstances, but at least 3/5- I'll update with better numbers when I can. this all happened at a very inconvenient time) have an extra back-facing toe on both their feet! I've never heard of jerseys or cubalayas with polydactyly, and neither of the parents have it, but the babies do. Can anyone who understands more about chicken genetics and how polydactyly is inherited fill me in on what's going on with my chickens' genetics here?

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Had a surprise when a blue jersey giant hen of ours who, for the last few weeks, we thought was dead turned up hiding with 4 happy day-old chicks! I'm posting a general help/advice post about this event in the raising chickens forum, but here I have a genetics question. The parents are a black-breasted red cubalaya roo and a blue jersey giant hen, neither of which have polydactyly- yet, at least a significant proportion of the babies (don't have exact numbers for you because of Circumstances, but at least 3/5- I'll update with better numbers when I can. this all happened at a very inconvenient time) have an extra back-facing toe on both their feet! I've never heard of jerseys or cubalayas with polydactyly, and neither of the parents have it, but the babies do. Can anyone who understands more about chicken genetics and how polydactyly is inherited fill me in on what's going on with my chickens' genetics here?

Do you have any other chickens with extra toes?

 

[nicalandia]

Pictures would be helpful.

 

[irradiatedsnakes]

Do you have any other chickens with extra toes?

Nope, none!

Pictures would be helpful.

I'll add pictures as soon as I'm able- probably sometime tomorrow.
Thank you both for the replies!

 

[theoldchick]

If your hen free ranged did she get with another rooster that you don't know about?

 

[irradiatedsnakes]

If your hen free ranged did she get with another rooster that you don't know about?

She would have had to travel pretty dang far, our nearest neighbor with chickens is half a mile away (and i don't even think they have polydactyl birds). Our chickens escape the run every now and then, but i've never seen them go anywhere near that far.

 

[irradiatedsnakes]

Pictures would be helpful.

Here's some of the babythings. they all have extra toes like that. Upon closer inspection, it looks like there's a few half-orpingtons, and one half-jersey. These would have been laid weeks ago obviously and that was when we had a breach in the fence that hens were going in and out of, so it makes sense that some of the eggs are from the black orpingtons, even if it's a blue jersey that's taking care of them now. (we have black-breasted red cubalayas, red pyle cubalayas, black orpingtons, and blue jersey giants)

So, since it seems we've got multiple mommas and one dad, and the babies all have polydactyly, that the polydactyl gene is coming from the cubalaya rooster?

 

[theoldchick]

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/...s more than,upward, never touching the ground.

 

[nicalandia]

very interesting as I don't see any signs of silki outcross.

 

[irradiatedsnakes]

If it helps anyone, this is the dad (since it seems the polydactyly is coming from him, because chicks of different moms all have extra toes). He doesn’t have extra toes, but he DOES have multiple spurs on each leg, if those genes could be related.