Chat room for non religious poultry keepers! :D

[fluffycrow]

It is really similar, mainly because it comes from the Greek word. Hmm, maybe cotton? Since they have the silkied feathers? That would be Vamvaki

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Oooh, I like that, too! What about wool, what's the word for that? The term 'woolly' used instead of 'silkied' seems common in Nordic breeds that have silkied variants. Cochins are definitely not Nordic in origin, but I do think 'woolly Cochin bantam' sounds way cuter than 'silkied Cochin bantam,' personally.

Rare woolly Vamvaki Dinosavros bantams! More words = more rare breed, right?

 

[fluffycrow]

I agree. It always goes like that. Wool is Mali (μαλλί) and wooly is malino. It does sound sound really cute. Wooly in general seems more cuddly

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Oooh, love those for names, too! I guess all of my silkied Cochin x naked neck mix chicks are going to have Greek names. Though I may save Mali / Malino and Vamvaki for the F2s since silkied feathering is recessive and won't show in the F1s.

It does sound cuddly! And using the term 'silkied' for the Cochins is a bit of an issue anyway because of the popularity of Silkie x Cochin mixes over here. It's easy to see 'silkied Cochin' and just assume that that's a mix, especially as silkied Cochins are not exactly common or their existence well known. A lot of us try to avoid that confusion by using the term 'hookless feathering' for things like sales, as that is the technical term for the trait and apparently was what it was originally called before it was given the moniker 'silkie feathering' based on the breed most famous for the trait. That's why the gene is assigned an h as its symbol rather than something like 'si' or 'silk' or similar (since S on its own is taken by silver). But yeah, I've often thought about calling mine woolly instead... but also don't want to misrepresent them in any way, so it's kinda tricky.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

This, for the record, is one of the reasons why I hesitate to call my birds woolly! Kind of funny that this was released so soon after the above conversation! I'd heard of the woolly gene (wo) a while back and its negative impacts, but beyond the couple of chicken genetics books I have touching on the gene, I'd never found any other information on the gene. Too bad the study this article references is behind a paywall. But this covers what I had wanted to know about it pretty thoroughly.

Sourced from Sigrid van Dort's site, chickencolours.com (hopefully the pdf attaches properly But if not, it should be at the bottom of the articles page on that website at the time of posting this.)

 

[fluffycrow]

This, for the record, is one of the reasons why I hesitate to call my birds woolly! Kind of funny that this was released so soon after the above conversation! I'd heard of the woolly gene (wo) a while back and its negative impacts, but beyond the couple of chicken genetics books I have touching on the gene, I'd never found any other information on the gene. Too bad the study this article references is behind a paywall. But this covers what I had wanted to know about it pretty thoroughly.

Sourced from Sigrid van Dort's site, chickencolours.com (hopefully the pdf attaches properly But if not, it should be at the bottom of the articles page on that website at the time of posting this.)

Very informative. It seems like the gene has thankfully been left in the past (I've unlocked a new fear now) . IMO the homozygous frizzle should as well. I guess we're doing cotton then

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Unfortunately for homozygous frizzle, heterozygous frizzle is quite popular, and those uneducated in how the gene functions quite frequently breed hetero to hetero out of ignorance.

But yes, wo appears not to have a very pleasant effect on those homozygous for it, so it thankfully never gained popularity as a trait. Makes me wonder why some silkied varieties are referred to as woolly, though. A translation thing? Or just the obscurity of the woolly gene maybe? I still think the term is cuter and less confusing than the term 'silkied', though the actual trait itself sure isn't.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Unfortunately for homozygous frizzle, heterozygous frizzle is quite popular, and those uneducated in how the gene functions quite frequently breed hetero to hetero out of ignorance.

This is similar to the 'crested' gene in ducks, which is actually a deformed skull. But people think it's 'cute' and so they keep getting bred

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Yeah, I'd heard of that, too. Vaulted skulls in breeds with large crests like Polish and some Silkies are also a skull deformity, but it also gets bred because it's 'cute'. Not a fan of the look, personally, even disregarding that the skull is deformed and fragile, leaving little protection for the brain. From my understanding with the trait in ducks, though, the embryo's brain is often formed outside of the skull because of the gene. Suuuper cute.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Does it bug anyone else that they keep using slightly disturbing AI-generated pictures of what appear to be severely deformed or possibly mutated chickens for the BYC project manager-produced featured articles, or is that just me?

...Just me? Okay.