Chicks growing strange feathers

[inquisitivebird]

I hatched these chicks from a hen and rooster that have the same parents which were from different lines, as I liked these birds and was thinking of experimenting with their genetics. I also wanted to try feeding meat bird crumble to the chicks to see if it would make a bigger sized bird for butchering at an earlier age. This is the first time I've used meat bird crumble.

The chicks hatched well and seemed healthy and they still seem really healthy except for their feathers. The feathers on all the chicks came in all frayed and untidy. It almost looks like the feathers don't have barbs to hold the strands together. I've kept them on the meat bird crumble as ad lib but am wondering if the strange feathers might be due to this food. Too much protein maybe? I thought protein was good for feathers.... The next batch of eggs from these parents hatched today and they are doing great. I plan to feed them the normal chick crumble instead of the meat bird crumble to see if there is any difference in outcome. If they also have the strange feathers, then it must be the genetic combination of the parents right? Too closely related? Although I know people inbreed chickens quite often with out poor results if not done for a long period over many generations.

The 1st batch of chicks are 3 weeks old today and photos are taken today.

I'd love to hear what anyone might think this is caused by or what it is.

 

[inquisitivebird]

Sounds like the first batch was a crazy lucky one to all be silkied! Thanks for keeping us updated! Can't wait to see what the other people report back with

Here's an update on the silkied chicks. 4.5 weeks old.

 

[inquisitivebird]

Just posting an update. These guys are 7 weeks old tomorrow. They are definitely silkied all over. They are very fluffy and round. Out of the 6, one died from accidentally falling in the duck pond, the 5 left look to be 4 roosters and 1 hen. I need to wait another couple weeks to know if the eggs I sold ended up hatching out silkies. I will be hatching more all summer ( we are in the southern hemisphere) after my incubator is done with some duck eggs and I'll see how many silkied hens I can get and then seeing what I decide to do...

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Looks silkied to me. Here is one of my silkied Cochin hen's wings, to compare:

It seems like the silkie-feather gene is a relatively common mutation in chickens; both silkied Cochins and silkied Ameraucanas popped up without any historical outcrossing to silkie-feathered breeds in either case, for example. Twice in Cochins from what I've read; once in a hatchery line of frizzled Red Cochin bantams, and another time in a breeder's line of smooth Black Cochin bantams. Note that being common for a mutation is still a very rare thing--mutations don't happen often as is, and on top of that the vast majority of mutations that do happen are not survivable. So it is still very rare for this to have happened, but not necessarily completely unheard of...

Still, do you have any pictures of these chicks' parents, grandparents, or even the great grandparents on the grandmother's side since she's a mix? Any other roosters who could have hopped a fence and fertilized any of them? Any chance of the eggs getting confused with someone else's? Any neighbors with roosters who could have paid a visit? I'm not doubting you at all, just like to cover all the bases!

Do you have any pictures of these babies standing normally, too? I'm a bit of a silkie-feather enthusiast, and I just like looking at 'em. The thought of a Dorking or Dorking mix potentially carrying the silkied gene has my heart aflutter at the thought, Dorks being my favorite breed despite that they don't have a known silkied variant!

 

[inquisitivebird]

Looks silkied to me. Here is one of my silkied Cochin hen's wings, to compare:

View attachment 3220342

It seems like the silkie-feather gene is a relatively common mutation in chickens; both silkied Cochins and silkied Ameraucanas popped up without any historical outcrossing to silkie-feathered breeds in either case, for example. Twice in Cochins from what I've read; once in a hatchery line of frizzled Red Cochin bantams, and another time in a breeder's line of smooth Black Cochin bantams. Note that being common for a mutation is still a very rare thing--mutations don't happen often as is, and on top of that the vast majority of mutations that do happen are not survivable. So it is still very rare for this to have happened, but not necessarily completely unheard of...

Still, do you have any pictures of these chicks' parents, grandparents, or even the great grandparents on the grandmother's side since she's a mix? Any other roosters who could have hopped a fence and fertilized any of them? Any chance of the eggs getting confused with someone else's? Any neighbors with roosters who could have paid a visit? I'm not doubting you at all, just like to cover all the bases!

Do you have any pictures of these babies standing normally, too? I'm a bit of a silkie-feather enthusiast, and I just like looking at 'em. The thought of a Dorking or Dorking mix potentially carrying the silkied gene has my heart aflutter at the thought, Dorks being my favorite breed despite that they don't have a known silkied variant!

This does look like my chicks wings! This has led me to look deeper into my old photos to see what the lineage of these chicks is. What I found was that what I thought was a brown leghorn hen back when I first started keeping chickens 8 years ago, was not a pure leghorn. This is the great grand mother of these chicks. We called her 'Funny hat' and she was given to us by someone that didn't want to keep chickens anymore, along with another two different types of chickens. Funny hat has a brown leghorn coloring and the body seems similar to me, and she has the floppy comb, but she also has a floof/crest... Which means there must be silkie in her lineage somewhere. She didn't ha e any other silkie traits that I was aware of, so I don't think she had much silkie in her... But who knows!!

The great grandfather of these chicks was Mr. Orpington:

Of these two, I hatched one egg, which was Matilda. She is 5.5 years old now and still with us. She also helped us raise some ducklings one year.

Last year I bought some Dorkings and hatched out some eggs from him and Matilda. I culled him shortly after, but this is his son who is full Dorking:

Those eggs grew up into what are the parents of the chicks with strange feathers in the original post. Shown below:

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

She didn't ha e any other silkie traits that I was aware of, so I don't think she had much silkie in her... But who knows!!

My first thought was Legbar as well, but definitely not pure as her feather coloration and shank color isn't right for the breed. It's certainly possible to combine other breeds and make something that resembles a Legbar without actually being one, though, so who knows what's in her! If she at any point in her background had a Silkie or other silkied breed crossed in, the gene is recessive and can be inherited without being exhibited for generations. Breeding sibling to sibling as you did brings it out if both siblings happen to have inherited the gene, which apparently they did! Some of their chicks will inherit the two copies needed to express the trait, one from both parents, and therefore be silkied as you've seen. This could be an explanation for what happened here!

I am also very interested in seeing how they turn out, so I hope you keep updating with them! I'm in love with the idea of silkied Dorkings now!

 

[inquisitivebird]

So, I have some exciting news, but firstly, I tried getting a hold of the buyers of 1 dozen of my eggs. One person did not respond to my contact about it, and the other said her eggs all died before hatching because of a faulty broody hen.

As for a the original chicks, they are 10 weeks old. 4 roosters and 1 hen:

Below are a few more photos showing the wing feathers of one of the brown ones and a cute fluffy bum angle:

The batch of 7 chicks that didn't have silkied feathers at 7 weeks old and I sold 5 pullets and the other 2 will be raised for meat. My incubator has been full of goose and duck eggs this month, but I did manage to hatch 3 more babies from a cheap unreliable incubator I don't like using. 1 of these babies appears to be silkied! I'm so excited about it because that proves it's a genetic trait and the fluke of getting 6 out of 6 silkies in that 1st batch is confirmed as remarkably unusual. So far out of 16 chicks, 7 have been silkied, still more than expected.

Also, I have the parents free ranging in a separated part of our farm with Matilda who is their mother. I thought Matilda surely wasn't going to lay eggs this year as she is almost 6 years old. But, low and behold, she started laying eggs 2 weeks ago. So, I'm going to hatch her eggs and see what I get. She is half Orpington and if I can get some silkied chicks from her, I will be one step closer to making a silkied Orpington aka Fluffington... Lol Her eggs will be going into the incubator in a few days, and I may try and squeeze in some more of the other eggs I've been hatching of these guys. I'll keep you posted!

 

[SourRoses]

It doesn't look like silkied feathers to me. Our previous silkied Ameraucana retained a downy look that simply grew longer.
Your chicks feathers have a clumpy look, with patches that are well zippered but ends that split and even seem to twist. A little closer to the feather shredding gene that shows up in Lavenders.
I'll be very interested to see what this turns out to be!

 

[inquisitivebird]

It doesn't look like silkied feathers to me. Our previous silkied Ameraucana retained a downy look that simply grew longer.
Your chicks feathers have a clumpy look, with patches that are well zippered but ends that split and even seem to twist. A little closer to the feather shredding gene that shows up in Lavenders.
I'll be very interested to see what this turns out to be!

Yes, I am very curious too. I will be sure to update the thread with pictures in a few weeks.

 

[Gobekli Pepe]

I don't know, but I'm definitely interested in seeing how these peeps turn out.