13th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-Along

[Josip]

Well, this naked neck bantam is officially the weirdest chicken I've ever owned and it's not just the naked neck that makes me say that. I sat down yesterday to 'wing sex' the chicks as I do with all of my chicks to record results and see how accurate it actually is, and this little one's wings would not open. On further inspection, her wings appear to be fused somehow? It's almost as if there's extra skin over top of the wing pins that hold them together and don't allow the wing to be opened fully. I'm not sure how to describe it, but here is the best picture I could get of it. You can see almost a webbing of skin between the wing pins.

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This picture shows all the further she can open her wings. They do not extend beyond this point:

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She's otherwise healthy, eating, drinking, pooping, etc. Not sure what to make of this. I did find a thread where someone else had a naked neck bantam from shipped eggs with the same thing going on--wonder if they got theirs from the same place I got mine. There weren't any updates in the thread, though, so I don't know what ended up happening with their bird.


Anyway, here she is with her first full crop! I am beyond fascinated by how well you can see the chick crumble through the bare skin there

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And our other wee one, with a full but much less visible crop, and definitely not pleased that I've disturbed her for a picture.

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Casper is still keeping a close eye on things...

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Pretty ready to call my hatch at just these two, but I'm going to open the air cells and peek on the other eggs later today before I report to those tracking hatch numbers.

I also do wings sexing, whats your result.. i think i have 10 girls and 4 Boys .. hope am right

 

[Josip]

So, update out of 15 chicks that hatched. 10 were strongs and 5 weaks. I give weaks chicks extra care but i lost one. Good news other 4 doing Great and are now with other 10 . So i end up with 14 chiks and am happy

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Well, the naked neck from what I could see past the weirdness of her wings sexes as a female, and the Cochin as a male. That said, all of my Cochins from that line wing sex as male and I get more females than males from them in the end, so wing sexing hasn't proven to be accurate on them in the least. This is my first naked neck, so time will tell on her. I do hope she is female, though, because she was the only one to hatch and I'm not sure I can justify keeping her if she turns out to be male.

 

[ronott1]

Wow! Is that unusual for that area this time of year? From the image I have of Cali that is surprising to me. I think it's always worse when unexpected.

It is unusual but California does have some odd climate pockets. We are getting snow in the Sierras this week and some rain in the Valley, which is odd since we had no rain in January to Feb. Which are our wettest months.

It will soon be over 100 F for more than 20 days in June through August. Most days will have a high over 90F

 

[ronott1]

I also do wings sexing, whats your result.. i think i have 10 girls and 4 Boys .. hope am right

Wing, or feather sexing only works for breed crosses. It is a sex-linked thing:

There is a section about it and cross examples that work at the bottom of the first post on this thread:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sex-linked-information.261208/

 

[ronott1]

Well, the naked neck from what I could see past the weirdness of her wings sexes as a female, and the Cochin as a male. That said, all of my Cochins from that line wing sex as male and I get more females than males from them in the end, so wing sexing hasn't proven to be accurate on them in the least. This is my first naked neck, so time will tell on her. I do hope she is female, though, because she was the only one to hatch and I'm not sure I can justify keeping her if she turns out to be male.

We have had posts about this!

Poultry Science?

You are applying sex-linked traits to a breed and not a cross....While it might be fun, it will not work better than a coin toss over time.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

We have had posts about this!

Poultry Science?

You are applying sex-linked traits to a breed and not a cross....While it might be fun, it will not work better than a coin toss over time.

Yup, I fully agree, and about 5 years of data I've personally collected from my own chicks backs it up! I really only do it to have that data and show people, from someone actively using the method, that it just doesn't work on any random chick.

 

[ronott1]

Yup, I fully agree, and about 5 years of data I've personally collected from my own chicks backs it up! I really only do it to have that data and show people, from someone actively using the method, that it just doesn't work on any random chick.

Nice!

Of course there are also a lot of doctorate level papers about it too!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

For sure, which makes it wild that people still believe in that method and insist that it works!

It's not the only chick sexing method I collect data on annually, though, just one of many. I've had a lot of fun with it, too: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/an-experiment-in-chick-sexing-methods.72520/

 

[AgnesGray]

It is unusual but California does have some odd climate pockets. We are getting snow in the Sierras this week and some rain in the Valley, which is odd since we had no rain in January to Feb. Which are our wettest months.

It will soon be over 100 F for more than 20 days in June through August. Most days will have a high over 90F

Woah! My brother is moving from Truckee to the plains. I hear it's a nice area, but the 100F days would get to me. Really beautiful though. Hopefully the lack of rain in Jan and Feb doesn't have a significant impact on the summer's fire season.