Genetics question about barred pullets *PIX ADDED*

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:
You're right, and I am taking that into consideration. They don't have any other tell-tale signs of being male, their combs are small & pale, especially compared to their nest-mates that I think are cockerels and there aren't yet any iridescent feathers like those cockerels have. I'll keep watching them as they grow and let y'all know if anything changes.

I have not ever had any other Henny-feathered cockerels hatched here, although I'm sure that Beaker has fathered his share of chicks. And I remember knowing that Beaker was male even before noticing his Henny-feathering pattern. It was something that came to my attention long after he was fully mature, one day I looked at him and realized "hey, he doesn't have any pointy feathers!" I picked him to stay as flock husband out of a batch of cockerels hatched here, I liked the many different shades of brown in his feathers and also that he was well-mannered around humans & hens.

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
I'm not sure but I just read something that makes me think that it might.

The nature of the defect that underlies the henny
feathering trait has never been elucidated. Castration
of male Sebright and Campine chickens (another breed
that carries the henny feathering trait) causes henny
feathering to revert to normal male plumage (5, 6).
Furthermore, transplantation of the testis from the
Sebright cock to the caponized Leghorn chicken results
in the development of a male feathering pattern
and comb in the Leghorn, implying that the testis of
the Sebright produces normal male hormones (7). Danforth
and colleagues (8) then showed that when skin is
transplanted from Sebright or Campine males to normal
cocks, henny feathering persists in the transplanted
skin whereas feathering is always of the donor type in
transplants of skin from normal to henny males (9-13).
Therefore, the defect must be present in the skin itself.
This deduction is in keeping with the fact that the administration
of testosterone to castrated Sebright cocks
causes male feathering to revert to henny feathering,
whereas similar treatment of castrated controls does
not alter the normal male feathering pattern (14). In
contrast, the administration of estrogen to castrated
Sebright or normal cocks results in development of
henny feathering in both breeds (15). Thus, the defect
cannot be due to androgen resistance in the ordinary
sense but must instead be due to the fact that testosterone
acts aberrantly as an estrogen in skin of
birds with the henny trait.
These various observations could all be explained if
the henny trait caused an increase in the conversion of
androgen to estrogen in the skin. In the human a significantcant
amount of estrogen is formed from the peripheral
aromatization of circulating androgens (16), a conversion
that takes place in many tissues including the hair
follicle (17) and fibroblasts cultured from skin (18). An
increase in the rate of conversion of androgens to estrogens
in the skin of birds carrying the henny trait could
result in the local formation of estrogen and the development
of feathering similar to that in normal females
in which skin estrogen is derived principally
from ovarian estrogen. To test this hypothesis we measured
the conversion of androgen to estrogen in slices of
various tissues from normal birds and from breeds
carrying the henny feathering trait. We have also measured
the androgen and estrogen levels in blood.

Information from Pathogenesis of the Henny Feathering Trait in the Sebright Bantam Chicken
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC371505/pdf/jcinvest00691-0066.pdf

Chris

 

[Sunny Side Up]

That was interesting, Chris, but I'm not sure I understand it completely. Are they saying that the Henny-feathering trait is something in their skin, not their organs? That it's something in their skin that affects the way those hackle/saddle feathers typically grow in a rooster? So you're saying that it might also affect the color of the skin on their legs too, making a male's legs look like a female's, is that right?

Is this trait something that occurs sporadically, with a random roll of the genetic dice? I've never before hatched a henny-feathered roo, and no other cockerel has hatched with this trait.

I have a buyer for all 12 of my young pullets, she plans to pick them up this Tuesday. I will sell them all to her, but let her know that these 2 barred birds *might* be cockerels, and let her decide if she still wants to take the chance with them.

 

[Chris09]

From what I under stand,
It is a hormone imbalance that can be found with in the skin.
This imbalance of hormones will affect the the feathering of a rooster, giving the rooster the plumage color and plumage pattern of a hen. (rounded hackles, saddle and in some cases shorter tail sickles and tail convert)
Now I believe it can also affect comb size some as some gamefowl that is Henny Feathered tend to have a some what smaller comb.

Here is a example of Henny Feathering,
Look plumage color and pattern of my American Gamefowl Hen and compare it to the plumage color and pattern of your "Beaker".
See the similarities?

By chance can you get a good head on picture of Beaker's comb?

Chris

 

[tadkerson]

Quote:
There are 3 possibilities ( that I can think of) for what has happened to the birds.

1. the birds are genetic males but the gonads did not develop into testes but ovaries

2. the birds are a product of nondisjunction during meiosis. The birds would be B/b/_. They would carry two Z chromosomes ( the B/b) and a w chromosome( _). The female would get the ZW chromosomes from the mother and a Z chromosome from the father. The female inherited a barring gene from the mother and she is barred. This is called trisomy and happens. It is not a normal thing but it happens.

3. parthenogenesis