Black crested White Polish

[RoostersAreAwesome]

I’ve only ever had bearded birds show crossbeak. 4 so far. 2 in my Easter eggers, whom I suspect to simply carry the genes for beak deformities, and 2 of my bantam ameraucanas. Whether that was genetics or an incubator mishap, i Don’t know.

I don’t mind. You explained it better than I could. My understanding of the topic boiled down to “beards don’t cause crossbeak, but bearded birds are just a bit more likely to show crossbeak than a non bearded bird.”

I’ve also noticed that Easter eggers are prone to crossbeak, a lot of the ones posted in this forum tend to be EEs.

 

[I Like Turkeys]

Well Chick #3 died a few days ago, with the larger vault and medium gray coloring. Little fellow below(chick was alive in this picture). At about 3 days old it stopped eating, even when prompted, and would just scratch at the ground. It was like it couldn’t find the food.

#1 and #2 are doing good though. Beginning to feather out. #1’s down color seems to closer correlate to most of my poorly-colored adults, #2 doesn’t. I grabbed photos of #2, but I’ll get some of #1 later today. Both their vaults have started to look more prominent.

Next clutch is beginning to hatch. 1/3 polish eggs so far. Another light colored chick. This entire clutch was supposed to hatch on Halloween, but I consider being late better than not hatching at all.

Every chick hatched so far has been mothered by Wendy. My first eggs from Sonic- the second pullet to lay- will hatch in 18 days.

 

[I Like Turkeys]

Chick 1:

Chick 4:

 

[Egg Snatcher]

Chick #1 looks almost laced

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Chick 1:
View attachment 3674827View attachment 3674828

Chick 4:
View attachment 3674829View attachment 3674831

Chick one is how my 3 light chicks feathered out. The Dark chick feathered out dark and adult plumage changed to the same as the lighys

 

[I Like Turkeys]

Chick #1 looks almost laced

I had some of the adults start that way too. None actually kept the lacing. The males ended up having bad breast and tail coloring, while 2 of my females look to have some patterning or spangling going on, and were colored similarly as chicks, and feathered out similarly.
Or maybe it’ll just end up clean-colored. It’s lighter than most of the adults were, but is still considerably dark. Who knows.

photos of adults when they were chicks for reference

Chick one is how my 3 light chicks feathered out. The Dark chick feathered out dark and adult plumage changed to the same as the lights

All of mine feathered out with at least some degree of leakage as chicks. It seemed to ring true though that my lighter ones ended up better as adults, although in the feathering out stage they still showed incredible leakage. Sort of why I don't expect chick #1 to end up as well-colored, but only time will tell whether it's color fades.


Chick(left) to adult(right) photos of Wendy-mother of all living chicks

Chick(left) to adult(right)

At the end of the day, whatever works, works. I'm trying to keep better track of the chicks this time(helps that there's a smaller amount I'm raising at a time) so I can better say what down color produces what adult color. Everything- absolutely everything- I've read says that lighter chicks produce better colored adults. I'm keen to believe it, but keeping dark down chicks doesn't hurt, and will help me with notetaking.

So far I'm happy with the number of light chicks I've gotten, especially coming from Wendy, who I worried would produce darker-colored down chicks and resultingly, poorer colored adults. I've gotten 2 dark-colored chicks- 2 medium shade chicks, and 4 super light colored chicks(including dead in egg chicks and the now dead chick). I'm mostly curious to see if they do yield a higher percentage of males, or if any of the light colored chicks I currently have will end up females.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I had some of the adults start that way too. None actually kept the lacing. The males ended up having bad breast and tail coloring, while 2 of my females look to have some patterning or spangling going on, and were colored similarly as chicks, and feathered out similarly.
Or maybe it’ll just end up clean-colored. It’s lighter than most of the adults were, but is still considerably dark. Who knows.

photos of adults when they were chicks for reference
View attachment 3674884View attachment 3674885

All of mine feathered out with at least some degree of leakage as chicks. It seemed to ring true though that my lighter ones ended up better as adults, although in the feathering out stage they still showed incredible leakage. Sort of why I don't expect chick #1 to end up as well-colored, but only time will tell whether it's color fades.


Chick(left) to adult(right) photos of Wendy-mother of all living chicks
View attachment 3674948View attachment 3674949

Chick(left) to adult(right)
View attachment 3674947View attachment 3674950



At the end of the day, whatever works, works. I'm trying to keep better track of the chicks this time(helps that there's a smaller amount I'm raising at a time) so I can better say what down color produces what adult color. Everything- absolutely everything- I've read says that lighter chicks produce better colored adults. I'm keen to believe it, but keeping dark down chicks doesn't hurt, and will help me with notetaking.

So far I'm happy with the number of light chicks I've gotten, especially coming from Wendy, who I worried would produce darker-colored down chicks and resultingly, poorer colored adults. I've gotten 2 dark-colored chicks- 2 medium shade chicks, and 4 super light colored chicks(including dead in egg chicks and the now dead chick). I'm mostly curious to see if they do yield a higher percentage of males, or if any of the light colored chicks I currently have will end up females.

Wendy is how my dark one grew. Gosh I miss mine. I'm glad they left when they did. But I do regret selling them all off some days

 

[ElPaso]

I had some of the adults start that way too. None actually kept the lacing. The males ended up having bad breast and tail coloring, while 2 of my females look to have some patterning or spangling going on, and were colored similarly as chicks, and feathered out similarly.
Or maybe it’ll just end up clean-colored. It’s lighter than most of the adults were, but is still considerably dark. Who knows.

photos of adults when they were chicks for reference
View attachment 3674884View attachment 3674885

All of mine feathered out with at least some degree of leakage as chicks. It seemed to ring true though that my lighter ones ended up better as adults, although in the feathering out stage they still showed incredible leakage. Sort of why I don't expect chick #1 to end up as well-colored, but only time will tell whether it's color fades.


Chick(left) to adult(right) photos of Wendy-mother of all living chicks
View attachment 3674948View attachment 3674949

Chick(left) to adult(right)
View attachment 3674947View attachment 3674950



At the end of the day, whatever works, works. I'm trying to keep better track of the chicks this time(helps that there's a smaller amount I'm raising at a time) so I can better say what down color produces what adult color. Everything- absolutely everything- I've read says that lighter chicks produce better colored adults. I'm keen to believe it, but keeping dark down chicks doesn't hurt, and will help me with notetaking.

So far I'm happy with the number of light chicks I've gotten, especially coming from Wendy, who I worried would produce darker-colored down chicks and resultingly, poorer colored adults. I've gotten 2 dark-colored chicks- 2 medium shade chicks, and 4 super light colored chicks(including dead in egg chicks and the now dead chick). I'm mostly curious to see if they do yield a higher percentage of males, or if any of the light colored chicks I currently have will end up females.

One thing I noticed about down color besides the light vs dark is the stripes on the back. And the width of the stripes or ratio of the widths tells something also. I think the lack of stripes and even faint striping is better than distinct striping.

 

[I Like Turkeys]

One thing I noticed about down color besides the light vs dark is the stripes on the back. And the width of the stripes or ratio of the widths tells something also. I think the lack of stripes and even faint striping is better than distinct striping.

What have you seen width/ratio of striping say? I'm curious.

All of mine at the moment have stripes. The lightest ones still have visible stripes, it's just finnickier to see because of their color.

 

[ElPaso]

I'm not sure what it means, but I read somewhere that ewh-ER may mimic eb-eb down. If so, the width ratio may be different. I think we need to be very observant of these details. I don't think e+ is in BCW but it is different for eb striping. Different genes have a different signature.