Can a chick really have more than one father??

[Redcatcher]

Quote:
Yes, it is, just like fraternal twins, however those have their own sacs, where the 'sac' is inside the egg in birds.

There is a wonderful BBC production about chimerism in humans- I have some of the characteristics (line down middle of abdomen w/ two different distinct shades of skin tone) but they were inherited by both of my daughters, so we dismiss it. The program is wonderful to watch!! There's a case of a woman who had her 3rd child seized in the OR at delivery because the gov't thought she was committing welfare fraud when her DNA tests kept coming back that her children were birthed by her sibling, not her. There was also a woman who tried to donate a kidney to one of her kids or vice versa and the typing came back right, but the organ was a different blood type!

Biology is fabulous!!

I recall seeing that show. The woman who they thought was committing welfare fraud could not find an attorney who would take her case. Even though there were witnesses at the delivery and saw her give birth to the baby. What a nightmare for her.

 

[Lobodugald]

Hi everyone.
I came across this post because I googled "can a chicken have two fathers?"
Why I wanted to know is because our white NON-BEARDED Silkies had one bearded baby.
We also had a partridge roo on the property who did have a beard so I thought he was also one of the dads since two non-beardeds cannot possibly make beards but at the same time the baby was pure white and not a mixture of partridge.
Any comments?

 

[The Moonshiner]

White silkies are recessive white (except whites from a paint line)
It takes a RW gene from both parents to be expressed. One copy will remain unseen. So your partridge rooster carries one RW gene.
It doesn't show on him but he can pass it on to offspring.