Partial Pea Combs From Single Comb Parents? Help

[Mosey2003]

I'm very confused right now. I bred a single comb cock to 5 single comb hens. Have 32 chicks of varying ages. Tonight I noticed 9 of them had what appears to be varying levels of a partial pea comb. How could this happen? Is there some sort of modifier one of the hens might lack that was suppressing this? It is 8 males and 1 female so far. Some are still too young to tell for sure. Any other ideas? These are SOP breeder birds of the same breed, from two different breeders.

 

[Mosey2003]

@The Moonshiner ?

 

[R2elk]

I'm very confused right now. I bred a single comb cock to 5 single comb hens. Have 32 chicks of varying ages. Tonight I noticed 9 of them had what appears to be varying levels of a partial pea comb. How could this happen? Is there some sort of modifier one of the hens might lack that was suppressing this? It is 8 males and 1 female so far. Some are still too young to tell for sure. Any other ideas? These are SOP breeder birds of the same breed, from two different breeders.
View attachment 1906176 View attachment 1906177

I can't tell from the picture, does the bird in question have a crest? Crests often mess with combs of any kind. In my opinion, I don't see any evidence of pea comb features.

 

[Mosey2003]

I can't tell from the picture, does the bird in question have a crest? Crests often mess with combs of any kind. In my opinion, I don't see any evidence of pea comb features.

No crest.
There's a single comb appearance near the beak and at the back it turns into a round bowl shape with tips poking out.

It's not right, anyway. And it's all the same type of mashup on the affected ones, not different mutations.

 

[Mosey2003]

I found this pic online and this is how mine would look if they were full-grown:

 

[Mosey2003]

Okay, I'm finally on a computer so I can elaborate a bit more. I think I may have tracked down what's happening. I found another forum with a thread about a pea comb modifier that restricts a pea comb, and I think for whatever ungodly reason, my hens are carrying that. When I bred them with the male from their lines, the combs looked fine. Now with this outside male, these combs are popping up.

Gave the hens a bit of a closer look this morning, but I didn't have much time before work and it was kind of dark. Two for sure look 'off'. Not full-on pea comb off, but not 100% right. How on Earth did I not inspect combs on birds before breeding them? I feel like a dunce. Never occurred to me that there could be this much trouble on a single combed breed, I gave them a glance and that was that.

Anybody have any more ideas or experience with things like this?

Am I right in thinking that if I put the male over any daughters with good combs, this should be gone?

ETA: Here is the only thing I can find about this:
http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=88595&page=1

 

[R2elk]

Okay, I'm finally on a computer so I can elaborate a bit more. I think I may have tracked down what's happening. I found another forum with a thread about a pea comb modifier that restricts a pea comb, and I think for whatever ungodly reason, my hens are carrying that. When I bred them with the male from their lines, the combs looked fine. Now with this outside male, these combs are popping up.

Gave the hens a bit of a closer look this morning, but I didn't have much time before work and it was kind of dark. Two for sure look 'off'. Not full-on pea comb off, but not 100% right. How on Earth did I not inspect combs on birds before breeding them? I feel like a dunce. Never occurred to me that there could be this much trouble on a single combed breed, I gave them a glance and that was that.

Anybody have any more ideas or experience with things like this?

Am I right in thinking that if I put the male over any daughters with good combs, this should be gone?

ETA: Here is the only thing I can find about this:
http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=88595&page=1

There is obviously more going on with combs than most information would lead a person to believe. I am currently working with a Rose Comb project. Common knowledge would have a person believe that rose comb is a simple dominant over single comb. I have some really nice rose combs show up in the offspring but I also have some that must be affected by something else. One of the combs that showed up this year started out looking like a rose comb but has since developed into something that looks more like a double single comb than a rose comb.

My guess is that whatever modifier that you are dealing with is a recessive trait. Using the ones that are not exhibiting the trait as your breeders may or may not eliminate the modifier. If it is recessive, the trait may simply not be expressed as it remains hidden when only one copy of the gene is present.

 

[nicalandia]

Looks like a twisted/deformed single comb.

 

[Mosey2003]

From what I'm reading in that other thread, and from what I know about pea combs, I'm thinking this modifier that restricts the pea comb into resembling a single comb needs to be coming from the cock and the hen. I dug up an old picture of the cock from the same lines as these hens, and his comb was thicker than normal and had rounded points. That's what those people are saying shows - thicker combs with rounded points. I think I didn't see any in their offspring because it must be restricting it like that when there's a double dose, but now that there's only one coming from the hen, these partial combs are showing up.

So, since pea is dominant, I think if I have any true single combs in the bunch, those *should* be free from all this and be just single combed, and fine to use.

 

[Mosey2003]

Looks like a twisted/deformed single comb.

That's what I thought when I first saw it, but when I picked them up, there really is a round back area that the single comb is "pouring" into, which makes me think it's something definite of it's own...

I'm going to inspect each hen thoroughly tonight and see what I've got. If I have any chicks that appear to have true single combs, I will breed them back and report.