Chimera???

[Redcatcher]

It seems I have a fascination for the bizarre. Even the tail is half black. She/he/it was scalped by some of my young gamefowl and what you see is stitches. I have no idea what color the head is.

 

[Hennypen]

Poor baby.

I don't know about the half and half except I've seen redbirds with this 'condition'. Half red on one side and cream on the other, straight down the middle.

But a question: isn't this a chicken? I'm curious why you said it was not a chicken. Isn't a bantam a chicken?

 

[Cat Water]

Quote:
I think what they mean is the mother was a chicken and the father was a Coturnix quail. So technically, it is not a chicken but a hybrid. No offense red catcher, but I don't believe it.

I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, but it would be really unlikely. How did you get him?

 

[Redcatcher]

I hatched it myself so I know there is no other possibility. It does appear to be a sexual chimera though. Whether that his related to hybridization, I have no idea. But put that right up there with my fart eggs, Paint Silkes and the meteorite that landed in my backyard (which was verified). Straaaange things happen.

 

[watersoflethe]

Quote:
paint silkies? really?

 

[Hennypen]

Quote:
I'm sending you money to buy me a lottery ticket.

but yea.. paint silkie? and meteorite (pm me a picture) I love those things. What happened to Pippin? I think your farm is over a mine of kryptonite.

Chimerism is actually a brindle look over the whole animal. I have a brindle horse who is NOT chimeric as it is only one one side of her body. I think this is some other weird genetic thing going on. The cardinals I saw were definitely cardinals and not a hybrid. And there was a whole flock of them. It is genetic or at least was with them. A brindle Chimeric animal can not pass on the stripes because its the combo of two different dna chains. Only one set of dna is passed to the offspring.

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

that is wicked looking, I love the negative/positive sides

red w/ black and the positive side black with red

that is quite neat!

I believe its possible - if a guinea and a chicken can mate and have viable offspring why not a bantam and a large coturnix?

 

[operator16]

Paul....You do have some interesting stuff going on there at your place. I think you're a mad scientist!

Can you explain what a Cortunix X is? What will this bird look like once he/she is mature? Do you know? Will it be fertile? Will you get eggs? Your 3rd picture really show the sweet face of that bird (stitches and all)!

How is Pippin? Can we get a current picture? My whole family is hooked and want to see how he/she is doing.

Meteorite? Seriously? What else are you keeping secret?

 

[Kev]

Quote:
It's a "halfsider". could be chimera or just somatic mutation(single individual, mutation happens in first few embryonic cells, spreads out from there).

Have to ask how are you so sure this is not a chicken? I notice it has a normal comb.. AFAIK, no chicken hybrid(not to other chicken species) have shown combs, at most a flat naked area(guinea-chicken hybrids). Did some search to give you a fair chance of this possibility.. however it appears some studies done with hybridizing chickens with coturnix indicated there were no fertility when quail semen was used on chicken hens. There was fertility/survival only with chicken sperm used on coturnix hens. This is a pretty big red flag.

References:

http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/Avian/Coturnix.pdf page 14:

In the chicken-coturnix hybridization, no fertility has resulted in chickens inseminated with coturnix sperm.

http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/52/4/167 unfortunately can't access whole article but has picture of 3-4 month old hybrids. No comb & look much more like quail.

http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/93/1/73

but the reciprocal cross to obtain quail-chicken hybrids was never successful

(this refers to quail sperm on chicken hens not being successful and cites 2 other studies finding same result) This one also has pictures but can't see the comb area too good..

http://www.spinus.info/Images/books/AH743697479746.pdf page 46:

Wilcox and Clark found that ten hybrids hatched from 2,282 eggs set (0.4%),

ouch! (that is chicken sperm used on quail hens.. just found that interesting!) but this says something pretty relevant to your bird:

All hybrids lacked a comb​

 

[X2Farm]

very interesting... never woulda known that could happen. Will be interesting to see how the chick does!!!

One question.. what was the breed of bantam chicken? (Curious cuz I have an un ID'd chick with that black and red coloring)