Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[Chaneys Ranch]

Finally took pictures.. was moving chicks to a different pen and took pictures of this one to ask over on the Aloha/mottle NN thread but I'll put a picture in here too.

Wow gorgeous colors!

 

[Kev]

Subscribing to this thread because I got two black turkens in my assortment order. I don't know anything about them and open to learning. I was concerned at first that they would get pecked at.....LOL no problem there!

Question - about when can you usually tell hens from roos with this breed? Would I have a chance of a roo co-existing with another roo if the chicken yard is large enough? Going to have 10 to 15 hens and keeping one to two roos. Yard not built yet, I have some leeway on how big it will be.

Welcome and glad you got 'tricked' into the wonderful world of nekid neckedom!

 

[Kev]

Well after buying 4 Naked Necks last summer, I ended up with 3 cockerels and 1 pullet.

The breeder I got them from has Barred, black, red, and I think she had white too, but I can't remember, all in the same pen, so I ended up with a red cockerel, a red cockerel with black speckles and white legs, a mostly white rooster with black and red speckles, and the pullet is a reddish color with blue legs. I decided to keep the all red rooster since he is the biggest. I wish I had more hens now! I'll definitely be adding some more Naked Necks to my flock next spring.

If you want color variety, the mostly white boy would be good- he would either throw half b/w half b/reds or possibly all b/w like him.

If you like the red color then the biggest one would work quite well. Red x red usually produces all reds.

For fun try breeding a NN roo over other breeds of hens..

 

[ochochicas]

I agree with DesertChick (sorry, my quote function isn't working today). The females feather out a lot faster than the males. The pullets have a lot of wing feathers and even long tail feathers by 10 days while the boys are just starting to grow theirs. The cockerels are also much more upright from the beginning. They stand taller and act more confident. By 2 or 3 weeks the boys will already be getting red cheeks.

If your birds are legbar crosses, I find that the males are always lighter colored and the females will be a bit darker and have more stripes and eyeliner.

 

[DesertChic]

Finally took pictures.. was moving chicks to a different pen and took pictures of this one to ask over on the Aloha/mottle NN thread if she really has mottling but I'll put a picture in here too.

Ooooooo.....gorgeous!

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

All naked necked chicks, just with a big bib.

it is big bib NN bred to full feather throwing the 1/2 NN.

@Kev (or others) - Can I get a clarification on this?

As I understand it, the Naked Necks with a "double dose" of the gene (homozygous, NN) usually have very small tufts on the necks (tiny bowtie), and the ones with a "single dose" (heterozygous, Nn) are feathered in the front of the neck (like a big muff) but have naked back of neck. HOWEVER, I know that uncommonly, some birds have a TOTALLY naked, smooth neck (no little tufts at all on the neck, naked down to crop area), like this hen, which I understand is desirable (I certainly wish I had one). Is this a different genetic feature, or interaction with NN and another gene? (Do we even know genetics of this?)

@jchny2000 - When you say that this hen throws chicks with totally naked necks, do you mean that some of them have COMPLETELY bare necks, like their mother (vs. small tufts seem in most NN genotype birds)?
For those of you who have birds like this (smooth/featherless necks), how do you use these in your breeding program? (I want!!!!

)

- Ant Farm

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Subscribing to this thread because I got two black turkens in my assortment order. I don't know anything about them and open to learning. I was concerned at first that they would get pecked at.....LOL no problem there!

Question - about when can you usually tell hens from roos with this breed? Would I have a chance of a roo co-existing with another roo if the chicken yard is large enough? Going to have 10 to 15 hens and keeping one to two roos. Yard not built yet, I have some leeway on how big it will be.

I have 13 Naked Necks and 10 New Hampshire Reds that are 6 weeks old (all raised together). I kept a lot of records form day one, including my guesses at gender. The wing and tail feather thing was right some of the time, but not a great predictor. However, for most of them, I could tell for sure from the comb size and color (and face redness) by 3-4 weeks for almost all of them (and some of the biggest boys were obvious by 2 weeks). And the boys will be bigger and grow faster (if you weigh them). Mine (from Ideal Poultry) developed their sex characteristics much earlier and clearer than the New Hampshires - which I'm STILL not quite sure about for most.

Hope that helps! You'll love them!!!!

- Ant Farm

 

[Kev]

@Kev (or others) - Can I get a clarification on this?

As I understand it, the Naked Necks with a "double dose" of the gene (homozygous, NN) usually have very small tufts on the necks (tiny bowtie), and the ones with a "single dose" (heterozygous, Nn) are feathered in the front of the neck (like a big muff) but have naked back of neck. HOWEVER, I know that uncommonly, some birds have a TOTALLY naked, smooth neck (no little tufts at all on the neck, naked down to crop area), like this hen, which I understand is desirable (I certainly wish I had one). Is this a different genetic feature, or interaction with NN and another gene? (Do we even know genetics of this?)

Correct. I'd rather not use muff here as that's usually used for beard/muffs. Perhaps bowtie vs bib? As in baby bib. I've been trying to think of descriptive terms for the visual difference between single/double het/dom dose.

BTW while the difference is most immediate on the neck, there are other signs even on a newly hatched chick. The homs will have naked areas on the face by the eyes while the hets have fully fuzzy faces. Homs also have larger naked areas on their bodies.. most easily seen when the chicks are still wet.. (dry)fluff and feathers does a very surprising job at covering up the naked body areas.

There is a monkey wrench though... pea comb has the side effect of reducing overall feathering. Not noticeable on most birds. However it can be observed when combined with NN- heterozyous pea on a heterozygous NN will have the naked areas around the face, beak and a smaller bowtie(usually somewhere in between a bowtie and bib) and often rather large parallel naked areas on back(again, dried fluff and feathers hide this well). They can fool one into thinking they are homozygous NN.. Also it is rather easy to hit on total clean necks on pea combed birds. I don't think it's possible to tell with these if they are truly clean necked or merely a side effect of pea comb.

Back to single comb NN.. as far as I know, nobody knows why some are totally clean necked.

My first many years in the NN hobby, I never had or saw a clean neck. Really wanted to see a total clean neck so I devoted a single line of hatchery turkens to the sole purpose of hitting on clean necks. No success after several generations.. the closest was some with a single feather on each side of neck.

Then I did egg trade with someone- the chicks were very obviously from a mixed flock, as there were crests, leg feathers, all sorts of combs etc. To my surprise... there were some totally clean necks- all happened to be pullets though so I did not get to do clean neck x clean neck, this group threw some chicks with clean necks but always in low numbers. None of the crosses of these to other "never had clean neck" lines produced any clean necks. Only in later generations did some clean necks show up, also in low numbers.. typical results were something like 2 fuzzies, 5 bibbed, 5 bowtie, 1 total clean neck... or 9 bibbed, 7 bowtie, 1 clean neck.

btw the lines that never threw clean necks started to produce some clean necks after being crossed with this group. Still have not done clean neck bred to clean neck, it's not of strong interest to me plus by chance it just never happened for a cock/hen with this trait to present at the same time in a project I was actively pursuing.

It seems to point towards something recessive and separate from NN gene and needing to be on a homozygous NN to show itself.

 

[artblueggwanter]

chickens are awesome and so are fire ants

 

[mymilliefleur]

If you want color variety, the mostly white boy would be good- he would either throw half b/w half b/reds or possibly all b/w like him.

If you like the red color then the biggest one would work quite well. Red x red usually produces all reds.

For fun try breeding a NN roo over other breeds of hens..

At first I was planning to keep the w/b one, but he looks a lot like my EE rooster, and I didn't want both my roosters to look the same.

Yes, I do plan to cross my NN rooster with my EE's, Sexlinks (just for fun), and maybe my GLW's and Mixes as well.

Interesting about the small bow tie meaning double copys of NN genes, and large bow tie meaning single copy......the red rooster I'm planning to keep has a very large bowtie, while the white/b roo has a much smaller bow tie, as does my hen, and the small cockerel. Does that mean he won't throw NN chicks when crossed with another breed? When it comes to NN genetics my knowledge is very limited.

Are those totally naked chickens in your avatar? Interesting.