Hey folks --
This little girl hatched two days ago. At hatch she appeared more naked than she does now.
She appears to have the "n" gene. This is a sex-linked gene -- which means that only the females will show the trait unless you work REALLY hard at giving a male chick two copies of the gene. It also means that the gene is passed through the rooster if both parents appear normal.
Since I have hatched more than 10 chicks from this rooster already (which all hatched appearing normal), I suspect that this is a spontaneous mutation (a true sport) -- not something passed from this particular rooster. But I can't prove that one way or the other.
You can see several pics of the little girl here:
http://eggheadhill.smugmug.com/gallery/8609855_DaZph
And you can see a bit more info about the "n" gene here:
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/29/10/371 -- scroll down to see photos -- the chick hatched out looking like B
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/469485
This little girl hatched two days ago. At hatch she appeared more naked than she does now.
She appears to have the "n" gene. This is a sex-linked gene -- which means that only the females will show the trait unless you work REALLY hard at giving a male chick two copies of the gene. It also means that the gene is passed through the rooster if both parents appear normal.
Since I have hatched more than 10 chicks from this rooster already (which all hatched appearing normal), I suspect that this is a spontaneous mutation (a true sport) -- not something passed from this particular rooster. But I can't prove that one way or the other.
You can see several pics of the little girl here:
http://eggheadhill.smugmug.com/gallery/8609855_DaZph
And you can see a bit more info about the "n" gene here:
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/29/10/371 -- scroll down to see photos -- the chick hatched out looking like B
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/469485