Can I breed my crossbeak?

[DTchickens]

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Why is the crest a defect if they're called "Crested ducks"?... Or were your crests just defective?

 

[Cuban Longtails]

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I'd certainly not consider it myself but some folks don't mind the time it would take to test for something being a genetic fault. There's plenty of good marans stock out there if you know who to contact.

I have also heard that you could breed out faults like that but you'd have to cull very strictly to do it and it takes a good bit of time. This is usually only done for very rare breeds that are highly inbred because of the lack of other sources of stock.

 

[lildinkem]

I'd let her live to eat her eggs only. Even then it costs just as much to feed a perfectly healthy bird as does a genetically flawed bird.

 

[Cuban Longtails]

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Kezzie, the only way to know for sure is to breed her. That's purely up to you, if you want to devote the time and space to trying it.

 

[Krys109uk]

Cross beaks have been studied apparently some are hereditary others not. When was this bird's cross beak first apparent?

 

[nicalandia]

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oh its GENETIC allright...

 

[PattiXmas]

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Why is the crest a defect if they're called "Crested ducks"?... Or were your crests just defective?

Well, it was on here that I learned that the crested area is actually a hole in their skulls that doesn't close properly giving them the pom pom effect on the top of their skulls. Sometimes, the little ducklings will hatch out with holes in their skulls and their brains exposed.

 

[DTchickens]

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Why is the crest a defect if they're called "Crested ducks"?... Or were your crests just defective?

Well, it was on here that I learned that the crested area is actually a hole in their skulls that doesn't close properly giving them the pom pom effect on the top of their skulls. Sometimes, the little ducklings will hatch out with holes in their skulls and their brains exposed.

Ahh... Well that's interesting.

 

[Kezzie]

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oh its GENETIC allright...

All the reading I have done suggests that it is just as likely to be an incubation problem- in which case, there's nothing genetically wrong with her.

 

[Kezzie]

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it didn't start until about 3 weeks and then slowly got worse. Something I read suggested that these types of defects are often incubation related.