ID for a lucky little pullet?

[The Modern Dinosaur]

(Moved from the Cream Legbar discussion thread!)

Hello!!

I'm a backyard chicken keeper from NY state and have a bit of a breed ID conundrum that I was hoping someone could help me solve.

My dilemma:

I purchased purebred hatching eggs (Lemon Cuckoo Niederrheiner) from a breeder online. There was some extra room in the box, so I asked the lady to throw something weird in and surprise me. 4 days into incubation, we have a massive tornado/apocalyptic storm that knocks a tree down and cuts our power for a week. The incubating eggs went without for 18 hours before I could get to them. Simultaneously, my Chocolate Orpington goes broody and means it this time, so semi-defeated, I let her have the eggs that candled reasonably well and hope for the best (she is sequestered to a private brooding suite, so no additional eggs from my pre-existing flock could have been introduced). She sat them for an ADDITIONAL 28 days. Seemingly impossibly, on May 29th, after checking her daily for nearly a month, 2 of the original 16 eggs hatched. One didn't make it, and the lone surviving chick is my now mystery chick. Note: There were a whole lot of serious leg issues my chick had due to her time spent in the egg that took 2 weeks of creative corrective orthotics to fix, but that's for a different thread.

The breeder had a finite number of purebred (mostly Greenfire Farms stock) chicken breeds, heavily detailed on her breeding page, but has since sold off almost all of her birds and doesn't seem particularly interested in helping solve this mystery.

What we know for sure:

1. My chick came out of a pale brownish/pinkish/tannish colored egg.
2. My chick has yellow legs, but not Big Bird yellow (they're slightly pinker).
3. My chick has 4 toes on both feet.
4. My chick seems to be growing a SINGLE COMB.
5. My chick does not appear to have any sign of a beard or muffs.
6. My chick is clean-legged with zero feathering.

Known Breeds the breeder had:

Lemon Cuckoo Niederrheiner
Blue Wheaten Ameraucana
BBS Copper Marans
Salmon Faverolles
Cream Brabanters
Cream Crested Legbars
French Lyonnaise
Isbar
White Leghorn
Blue Laced Red Wyandotte
Icelandic Landrace

Below are pictures of my chick, who is so completely adored it doesn't REALLY matter what she is, but solving the mystery is fun too. If anyone has a clue what she might be, I would be thrilled to hear ideas!

-Andrea
moderndinosaur.tumblr.com/

 

[JaeG]

Looking at its colouring (I'm not familiar with most of those breeds but I did a search to see what they looked like) I'd say the Icelandic Landrace is the most likely. Such a pretty baby!

 

[junebuggena]

Not cuckoo/barred, so that rules out Niederrheiner, Isbar and Legbar. Not muffed so that rules out Ameraucana. Not feather legged so that rules out Marans and Faverolles. Not crested sot that rules out Brabanter and Lyonnaise. Not white, so Leghorn is out. Not rose combed so that rules Wyandotte out as well.
Leaving only Icelandic.

 

[drumstick diva]

agree with that

 

[The Modern Dinosaur]

Not cuckoo/barred, so that rules out Niederrheiner, Isbar and Legbar. Not muffed so that rules out Ameraucana. Not feather legged so that rules out Marans and Faverolles. Not crested sot that rules out Brabanter and Lyonnaise. Not white, so Leghorn is out. Not rose combed so that rules Wyandotte out as well.
Leaving only Icelandic.

I agree. Except, she has to be a mix. She came out of a throw-in egg that was not purebred. So confusing. Thank you so much for the quick reply!

 

[junebuggena]

I agree. Except, she has to be a mix. She came out of a throw-in egg that was not purebred. So confusing. Thank you so much for the quick reply!

Not necessarily. Just means that the breeder threw in a few eggs from a different breed and let it be a mystery what hatched. Those aren't the sort of breeds you just let crossbreed willy-nilly. If she kept her Niederrheiners separate, you can bet she had separate pens for the other breeds as well. And her traits still rule out all of the other possible breeds, since the traits that I mentioned were dominant features that would have shown up.

 

[The Modern Dinosaur]

Not necessarily. Just means that the breeder threw in a few eggs from a different breed and let it be a mystery what hatched. Those aren't the sort of breeds you just let crossbreed willy-nilly. If she kept her Niederrheiners separate, you can bet she had separate pens for the other breeds as well. And her traits still rule out all of the other possible breeds, since the traits that I mentioned were dominant features that would have shown up.

You make very good points. The original packing list that arrived with the eggs was for LCNs, SFs, some Favaucanas, and OO/MaransX (all of which were marked accordingly, except the ones that hatched, LOL!) The breeder thought the unmarked eggs must have come from her lone BLRW that was in the fray at the time, but that makes no sense. If she lays a blue or green egg in a few months things are going to get really interesting!!

Thank you for all your help and listening to my slightly ridiculous story. This little chick is beyond hearty. I still have no idea HOW she managed to survive. She came out of the egg with a weeks worth of wing feather growth. Truly bizarre but so cool.

 

[The Modern Dinosaur]

Thought I would post an updated pic of my mystery pullet. It's looking like everyone was right and that she is certainly an Icelandic. She's laying lovely ivory/cream-colored eggs now as well. Thanks again for all your collective help!