Feathers - 4 days

[graphicali]

I have a couple of black copper marans chicks that hatched last week-end, so 3-4 days old now. One of them, who hatched first, is much larger and has started sprouting feathers. The wing feathers particularly are really growing fast. They are sticking out and it looks like a little penguin. Is rapid feathering up a sign of a cockerel? This chick doesn't have much of a comb visible but it is only young, so I guess that will develop in the next week or two.





I could only get a quick photo of the chick, so the photo is a poor one. I will try to get more once the house warms up a bit. The chicks are under an electric hen, so they aren't keen on coming out. The temperature went down to 9 degrees celsius last night outside, so it is still cool in the house.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Male and female chicks do feather out differently but it’s normally at least five weeks before that starts to become obvious. I think you are seeing the difference in the fast-feathering and slow-feathering gene. It’s a sex linked gene, which means the hen only has one copy at that location while the rooster has two copies. The hen will only give a copy of what she has to her sons and does not give anything to her daughters. The rooster gives a copy of that gene to all his offspring, male and female. The slow-feathering is dominant. If the parents are set up right genetically you can sex the chicks by looking at the wing feathers at hatch. If they are not set up right this does not work.

There are several different scenarios why one chick could get genetics for fast-feathering and the other be slow-feathering with the same parents. If the rooster has one fast feathering and one slow feathering gene, you don’t know which he will give to any specific offspring. That’s random. If the hen has the dominant slow-feathering gene then that is a girl. If she has the recessive fast-feathering gene that could be either a male or female depending in what the rooster contributed. If they have different parents that just adds more uncertainty.

Bottom line, while the odds favor the fast-feathering one to be a girl and the other to be a boy, you just can’t know for certain.

 

[graphicali]

Haha, yes a 50% chance of a girl! Thank you for the explanation. The genetics of feather colour is enough to make my head spin without adding things like feather growth. Whilst I have kept mixed breed random chickens for a couple of years, and cream legbars many years ago, marans are a new one on me and I think that it will be an interesting experience.

It would probably be easier if I had more chicks to compare to each other but there are just the two. They were from a batch of shipped eggs that the postal system was unkind with and out of 12 there were only 3 fertile at 18 days. 2 hatched and one died in the shell.

I have some more coming today so I am hoping that they turn out to be a better hatch.