pips&peeps :
I think the second one is a girl too. There have been a few people hatch wheatens this year with a kind of mottled look to them.
If it were a cockerel there would be more color on the breast.
I agree with Jean for now but would add that more time will tell. I think the chick in question does have the startings of the look of a Wheaten male on the sides but the back has too much brown and looks more like a female. Overall though, I think it just looks more girlish.
I don't remember if I posted it here or not but I did make a post about the mottling on the ABC Forum. I hatched out over 150 WBS chicks this year and had about four that had what I call a "Calico" look. Overall there was more chocolate looking that should be and there was a nonspecific mottling pattern with large blotches of black throughout the bird.
The other thing that was baffling is that there was no common linkage in parentage. At least to the immediate parents. I haven't been able to go back and look further into their history yet.
Just FYI, I've also had a couple of chicks/juveniles with an overall bluish look to their feathres and a reddish/purplish sort of lacing to the feathers as well. I had two of those I think. Pulled a boneheaded move with them and sold them before thinking about recording their pen # so I could look into it. I have one female out there now that I'm pretty sure is over a year old now and she has that look to her. She's also got a funky looking comb that sort of lends me to believe there is some SC in it and she still hasn't laid yet. In fact, her pelvic bones lead me to believe she may be a spell off from laying still. This may sound like I'm nuts (no comments PLEASE!
) but I'm starting to wonder if maybe she ain't a hermaphrodite or something.
I've read about so-called spontaneous sex changes in chickens so I guess it's possible. Anyways, I'm holding on to her solely out of pure curiosity. Be interesting to see what comes of her.
Anyways, Muggs asks where all this mottling comes from. It sounds like others besides me have experienced it as well. I'd be interested in hearing from those folks. Maybe we can put our heads together and figure out what's going on. I have often wondered why I am the only one see this. I'm not shy about telling others that I get stuff like this. But maybe others just don't want to advertise it. For me, I can't learn if I don't bring it to light.
Having said that, for now I'm just chocking it up to "just one of those things". It's a mystery. May stay that way. I read somewhere that there are like 148 different genes in a chicken and that's more than any other animal. Not sure if that includes all the "modifiers" or not. But if that be the case, the I don't think 3-4 chicks out of over 150 is anything to worry about.
God Bless,
I think the second one is a girl too. There have been a few people hatch wheatens this year with a kind of mottled look to them.
If it were a cockerel there would be more color on the breast.
I agree with Jean for now but would add that more time will tell. I think the chick in question does have the startings of the look of a Wheaten male on the sides but the back has too much brown and looks more like a female. Overall though, I think it just looks more girlish.
I don't remember if I posted it here or not but I did make a post about the mottling on the ABC Forum. I hatched out over 150 WBS chicks this year and had about four that had what I call a "Calico" look. Overall there was more chocolate looking that should be and there was a nonspecific mottling pattern with large blotches of black throughout the bird.
The other thing that was baffling is that there was no common linkage in parentage. At least to the immediate parents. I haven't been able to go back and look further into their history yet.
Just FYI, I've also had a couple of chicks/juveniles with an overall bluish look to their feathres and a reddish/purplish sort of lacing to the feathers as well. I had two of those I think. Pulled a boneheaded move with them and sold them before thinking about recording their pen # so I could look into it. I have one female out there now that I'm pretty sure is over a year old now and she has that look to her. She's also got a funky looking comb that sort of lends me to believe there is some SC in it and she still hasn't laid yet. In fact, her pelvic bones lead me to believe she may be a spell off from laying still. This may sound like I'm nuts (no comments PLEASE!
I've read about so-called spontaneous sex changes in chickens so I guess it's possible. Anyways, I'm holding on to her solely out of pure curiosity. Be interesting to see what comes of her.
Anyways, Muggs asks where all this mottling comes from. It sounds like others besides me have experienced it as well. I'd be interested in hearing from those folks. Maybe we can put our heads together and figure out what's going on. I have often wondered why I am the only one see this. I'm not shy about telling others that I get stuff like this. But maybe others just don't want to advertise it. For me, I can't learn if I don't bring it to light.
Having said that, for now I'm just chocking it up to "just one of those things". It's a mystery. May stay that way. I read somewhere that there are like 148 different genes in a chicken and that's more than any other animal. Not sure if that includes all the "modifiers" or not. But if that be the case, the I don't think 3-4 chicks out of over 150 is anything to worry about.
God Bless,
