2 hatches of silkies, one with missing 5th toe

[txbirdlady]

Hi guys,
I just started breeding my pet quality silkies. I have 3 hens and 1 roo. I recently hatched two batches of their eggs. 1 batch was hatched in my incubator and the other batch was hatched under two broody silkie hens.
The incubator batch hatched first and was my first time hatching silkie eggs. 6 of the incubator babies hatched. Of the six, only two had all 10 toes. Two had 9 toes (5 on one foot and 4 on the other) and two had 8 toes. At first I blamed it on having poor quality parent silkies from a large hatchery and that they must all carry the 4 toe recessive gene. The hens are different colors so it was relatively easy to tell that the babies with missing toe had different mothers. But then...
My silkies just hatched 7 babies and every single one has all 10 toes!
Is it possible that my incubation temperature/humidity may have caused the missing toe issue in the incubation batch of silkie chicks?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Is it possible that my incubation temperature/humidity may have caused the missing toe issue in the incubation batch of silkie chicks?

No.

Someone is throwing 4 toes... if you only have one rooster, he IS one of the culprits. Replacing him MIGHT stop the second 4 toe (hidden is not the same as recessive as far as I know) gene from being thrown... to match the hens that are throwing it... Test mating is how you can eliminate it if you want to increase the quality of your stock.

In my experience hatching... toes missing, that's completely genetic.

BUT... so you separated up eggs and gave some to the hens and some to the bator... and NONE of the hen hatched ones were missing toes?? Or was that another hatch all together where they weren't missing any?

Bet they're all still cuties!

 

[chickens really]

If just pet quality Silkies it shouldn't matter anyways. I'm sure they are all adorable too..

 

[txbirdlady]

No.

Someone is throwing 4 toes... if you only have one rooster, he IS one of the culprits. Replacing him MIGHT stop the second 4 toe (hidden is not the same as recessive as far as I know) gene from being thrown... to match the hens that are throwing it... Test mating is how you can eliminate it if you want to increase the quality of your stock.

In my experience hatching... toes missing, that's completely genetic.

BUT... so you separated up eggs and gave some to the hens and some to the bator... and NONE of the hen hatched ones were missing toes?? Or was that another hatch all together where they weren't missing any?

Bet they're all still cuties!

They are definitely all cuties!

So I put eggs in the incubator and then a week or two later one hen went broody. A few days later a second silkie hen went broody. My incubator was full so I let the two broody hens sit on their eggs. So there were two seperate hatches about 2 weeks apart. The first hatch (incubator) had chicks with 8 or 9 toes. Second hatch (broody hens) had no chicks with missing toes.

It doesn't bother me because of the fact they're pet quality and sold as pet quality. It was just a weird observation since the only difference between the two hatches was 1) time 2) type of incubation.

 

[txbirdlady]

If just pet quality Silkies it shouldn't matter anyways. I'm sure they are all adorable too..

They are adorable!