5-6 wk old chicks: Orpingtons? Ameraucanas? Marans? Mutt chickens?

[woodsia]

chicken named fluffyboo,
username named fluffyboo,
get the resemblance!!!
PS. I am not a chicken or.....at least not last time I checked

Hi, sweetie! (Fluffyboo - the user, not the chicken - is my daughter.)


Well, I guess the moral of the story is that when you find your chicks on Kijiji, be prepared for 'genetic soup.'

I was thinking the same thing, looking at the different combs, leg colours, feather patterns, and so on. I suppose I'll just wait till they grow up and see what they turn out to be, and maybe choose my breeder a little more carefully next time. Thanks so much to everyone for your input.

 

[WyandotteIndeed]

I have a little hen who looks a lot like what you have. She is a 1/4 silkie and the rest marans. Here is a photo so you can see. I have found that the cream legbars are considerably more rare that silkies and I have seen a great deal more of the silkie mixes with the little crest but otherwise features and characteristics of the smooth feathered parent. Also, none of the breeds this farm caries are crested and only the marans would have feathered legs, EEs should have tufted cheeks/beards but not crests. True aracaunas can have crests I believe, but also much less common.

She also has a few feathers on the shanks.

And this is her father, a pure splash marans. Mom was a blue marans/silkie hen that my friend raised. She also had a little crest but otherwise looked like a marans.

 

[farmerChef]

Araucanas do not have crests in the American standard, but they do in Europe and Australia.
US standards only recognize double tufted rumpless birds, Europe has standards for rumpless and tailed, and they are crested, tufted and bearded Araucana

Europe standard
http://www.araucana.org.uk/breed_standards.html

 

[gardenfairy]

Speckles, who I would believe has Welsummers in there, may just look more masculine than your other chicks because of the single comb. And while they may not be any particular breed, that is one of the cutest batch of chicks I’ve ever seen. I’m totally in love with those adorable crests and there are a lot of fun colors in there!

 

[woodsia]

@ WyandotteIndeed:
Wow! She does look similar! Very pretty chickie. I had the same thought that there might be some silkie in there - there just aren't many common crested breeds, and I live in an area where rarer breeds are hard to come by, so the most common possibility just seems like the most logical. Is your girl close in size to a standard-sized chicken? Mine are now around 8 weeks old, and roughly the size of a football, very broad in the back and shoulders. They don't seem bantam-sized, but I suppose it's possible for there to be enough silkie to give them the crest and comb, but not affect their size too much. And not all silkies are bantams, either.

@ farmerChef:
Thank you for the link! The gallery section shows some very definite crests, which led me to google 'crested araucana,' which came up with a lot of chickens that looked a lot like mine. I don't know exactly how these things play out geographically, but I am in Canada, so a UK influence seems possible.

@ gardenfairy:
Thank you! We are really awfully fond of them - they are a great 'starter flock,' no matter what breed they are. I see Welsummer in Speckles, too... but there's a lot of black on the chest, which I understand usually indicates a boy in Welsummers. But I'm taking a 'wait and see' approach, just in case.