My friend says this is a non-traditional Ameracauna, but I said....

[Pele]

Oh my goodness, I've never seen a calico chicken before! I'm in love!

Your chick does have a slight chance of being an EE, but it's not likely. EEs are mixed to a certain extent, but once you lose the pea comb, the willow legs, the puffy cheeks, and the blue egg gene , you are left with a barnyard cross.

Obviously we can't tell about the egg gene yet, but I highly doubt the gene is present.

Please please please keep posting as this chick grows. I'm facinated to see how it develops!

PS: highly unlikely to be a Chimera as those are normally (if you want to call them normal) lab-developed.

 

[Stacykins]

Quote:
Unlikely because the low probability of a chimera being produced? Yes. But just because labs have ways of producing lab grown chimeras, or that it is more common as the result of in vitro fertilization, doesn't mean that chimeras are limited to labs, they are produced in nature. Chimeras have been around long before labs were researching and making them. It is just that most chimeras go unnoticed unless there is some phenotype that is very noticeable.

 

[donrae]

Can ya'll tell me what you're seeing that makes you say chimera? I guess I see some asymmetry, but was just thinking it's a barnyard mix. What's caught your eye that I'm not seeing?

 

[Pele]

Quote:
Unlikely because the low probability of a chimera being produced? Yes. But just because labs have ways of producing lab grown chimeras, or that it is more common as the result of in vitro fertilization, doesn't mean that chimeras are limited to labs, they are produced in nature. Chimeras have been around long before labs were researching and making them. It is just that most chimeras go unnoticed unless there is some phenotype that is very noticeable.

Yes, thank you that is exactly what I meant. Please notice that I did not say "It absolutely cannot be a chimera, those are ONLY produced in labs". It's just very unlikely. And on top of that, coloration differences based on sex would show with later feathering, not at the chick stage unless it was the result of a cross to get a sex link, which wouldn't result in those colors.

 

[onthespot]

The parents could be heterozygous for various colors, and produce a chimera chick with bi-colored down, absolutely. Especially if it came from EE stock, which means crazy mixed up confetti genes.

 

[Lacey1988]

a little mutt I guess but a very interesting pretty one....

 

[TinyLittleFarm]

She looks like a marbled cake! How cute!

 

[Pele]

Quote:
Lol that's the best description of EE genetics I've heard. Yay confetti genes! This chick is a party all by itself!

 

[mama24]

I was just showing my dh this thread and he says chickens probably have much higher rates of chimerism due to the fact that they ovulate every day. I wonder if that's true, or if all of these chickens people post about on here are Mosaics, not chimeras. Mosaics are much much more common.

 

[Deannster]

Hey all! This was posted here by my friend to try and figure out what my little chick could be. Several weeks later, it looks more and more like I may have a chimera after all. Updated photos can be found at this thread . Thanks!