Chicks with fully bearded parents look clean-faced to me! Are they?

[sevenbabychicks]

I originally posted this in the "breeds" section, but I think it might be more appropriate here (?)...

My hen, Esme, recently hatched the cutest chicks ever. But while all the parents have beards, two of the chicks don't look like they do! They're Esme's - she's an EE/Marans with a big beard; the roo is either a "pure" EE (non-standard ameraucana) or possibly an EE/Marans mix too. He also has a pretty substantial beard.

I've been looking all over this forum, and found a little bit on beard/muff genetics, and am still puzzled why these chicks look to be clean-faced compared their half-sibs who definitely have the puffy cheek thing going on. But maybe they do have beards and I'm just not noticing them? What do you think? Can two fully bearded parents produce completely clean-faced chicks?








In comparison, here are pics of the other two. This one was out of the same roo and another EE hen:



This little guy's mom is a salmon faverolles. Expecting an impressive beard here




Thanks!

 

[ve]

In your situation 25% of the babies would not have a beard. So one of the would probably not have one.

 

[sevenbabychicks]

Cool, thanks! I guess this means that my roo might be an olive-egger! Wish my full-maran's eggs would've hatched