Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[homeschoolchick]

Flower- I am very sorry about your rooster!

Love all the pictures everyone !!

 

[Lacey1988]

Got my first two the other day

....I got them when they were a day old. I need to take a picture of them now that they've feathered out some. They have some interesting colors since their father was half EE



I think this ones going to be a rooster

 

[draye]

Just pulled 9 babies (Naked Necks) and 7 babies (Easter Eggers) out of the hatcher.

 

[homeschoolchick]

Draye - Congratulations!!!!



Lacey1988- Very adorable!! I love the first one Is that a beard I see?

 

[Kassaundra]

Just pulled 9 babies (Naked Necks) and 7 babies (Easter Eggers) out of the hatcher.

 

[Knock Kneed Hen]

I love seeing chick pictures...just be sure to come back and post them all grown up!! EE's are fun because you really don't know what you're going to get. Thanks for sharing!

 

[pgpoultry]

Flower....did your roosters injure each other so badly? SO sorry to hear about you having to have one put down.

 

[flower]

Thanks to all with messages about loosing my Hector. Yes a white ameraucana was found flying up in the air and stomping down onto Hector who was never able to stand up independently or move his R wing and seems despondent although he was awake. He did nibble at food on occasion and drink when he could. Even though he was alert and held his head up, he seems confused and was wasting away so I put him down. It was sad. But I think that it is alright now.

 

[Kev]

So nice to come back to this thread & find tons of excellent pictures!

Flower
Today when I was trying to take some pics I was thinking the same thing about his comb.I don't know much about their breeding.I posted a wanted to buy ad on craigslist and this guy called, priced them, and offered to bring them to me.All I had to was drive to the end of my road to look at them.Thanks for the info.on the dark skin.I have baby naked necks coming from cackle at the end of the month and would love to add the dark skin to all colors of naked necks.

I cant tell from picture if his comb is butter cup or a very large 'not pure pea comb'? Does he have those smaller bumps on both sides of the comb or does it make a bowl shape?

 

[Kev]

LOL...Well I have read that but I did get a surprise boy. When I first started, I only had light skinned turken girls. No turken boys at that point. I had a broody hatch out a dark skinned boy and I could never figure that out. His sister also was dark skinned. So the rooster had to be a silkie in order to get the dark skin since I only had light skinned girls at the time. So, I had read that you could sex link the F1's by the girls being dark skinned and boys being light this way but I sure got a surprise when he started to crow! LOL So in my experience, I do not know if that is a 100% thing to go by. I have learned to wait a bit now to be sure and so far only that one boy popped out dark skinned from this type of breeding but it sure has put doubt in my mind!

Excellent observation! "dark skin is sex linked" does get passed around but really, it's missing out on important details. Dark skin is not sex linked. That's exactly why you had dark skin in both sexes... that's to be expected because dark skin inherits in a simple dominant manner.

One very important factor are other genes- one being Id, it inhibits skin pigmentation in the skin. It's the cause of yellow or white legs on birds without barring. This gene will variably repress the dark skin gene. Id is also sex linked.... so a mating of a dark skin with a bird having the Id gene will seem to prove dark skin is sex linked but that's only an illusion because it's the Id gene doing that work.

A dark skin rooster bred with a hen with Id will seem to produce dark skinned daughters and light- light-ish skinned sons. (this will seem to confirm dark skin being sex linked but it's really the Id gene that's sex linked and repressing the skin color in the sons)

A dark skin rooster bred with a hen without Id will produce dark skins in both sexes. Sex linked theory of dark skin simply disproven.

Of course that's just the clean, easy answer. The truth is there's a lot of many genes that can affect how dark the skin gets on the birds. Barring will also affect skin pigmentation, probably some colors/patterns plus if the bird is birchen, wheaten or red duckwing probably has an effect, could be why there's a relatively limited color range in silkies- too many colors pose a challenge to maintaining the dark skin... I don't know all of them but, testerone will lighten the skin on many cockerels when they start to mature. It's always a challenge to get nice dark skin on roosters past one year of age, comparatively easy on hens. This might seem to confirm the idea it's sex linked but it's really sex influenced, the same thing that makes roosters grow rooster feathers and hens don't.