turken babies

[jnkir7]

i have ten little turkens hatch shipped eggs, is it normal for one to be fully featherd i was expecting all to be naked necks, there so cuuute. janie

 

[lotzahenz]

NO, I don't think so. I was just reading in Practical Poultry today that the Naked neck gene is dominent. They should all have naked necks. I guess you could have an odd bird though, but I have very little knowledge of genetics and such. I know there are experts on here though, so maybe one will chirp in. Even with a fuzzy neck, they are cute though. I love the naked necks. We called our last ones "Bo Peep" because of the bow tie, and Bo Peep II, and III. So original, and there was NOT Bo Peep, she didn't get the bow tie.

We rarely name our chicken anymore, too many of them to keep up with. HenZ

 

[jnkir7]

i thought all were naked so i was picking them and one had all her feathers ,i thought they all were supposed to have them. maybe he got an egg mixed in

 

[lotzahenz]

I bet that was it, you'll know more as they get bigger. You might just have a "fault" of whatever you'd call it when genetics don't go as planned. Either way, 9 is a great number of them to have. Did you see the blue NN Cochin Roo on here? He is way cool. HenZ

 

[Buckguy20]

If it doesn't have a naked neck then it doesn't have the gene for it. It is basically just a mutt. I have a turken roo and when I put him with other breeds of hens only about half of the chicks will have naked necks. The others as beautiful as they be are just cross bred chickens.
It takes a homozygous rooster to get 100% NN's.

 

[jnkir7]

hope he just got an egg mixed up, or maybe he sent me a surprize chicken, she is very pretty .

 

[Kev]

It's VERY common for breeders/owners to not realize(? maybe some do but keep/breed them for various reasons?) that some of their turkens are not pure for the naked neck gene. I see pictures of breeders/flocks that eggs/chicks being offered from that are not pure quite often. So even if all the "birds in that pen" have naked necks, these still can throw some fuzzy necks.

Another common misconception said about turkens is that only the pure ones have totally bare necks.. there are many pure ones that have small bowties.. the visual difference between a not pure and a pure is the size of the bowtie. Pure ones have a tiny bowtie and the not pure ones have a huge fuzzy patch that covers most of the front of neck and are overall "less naked" than pure chicks. I'll add pictures of day old chicks to show the difference:

Pure on right, not pure on left.. notice the one on right has clear area below bowtie and also a naked space between eye and beak.. the darker one has a huge bowtie, plus her face is solid fuzzy:

Pure one, this one has a very small bowtie, could appear totally bare necked but if you look, can see tiny puffs of bowties up on neck:

I only have pictures of chicks right now but the bow tie size difference can be seen on adults too.

So it could either be egg mix up or the breeder was not aware of this or didn't mention it.

 

[jmhappycowboy]

Here ya go Kev. I think this pic should help you explain to OP what your talking about.

 

[Kev]

Yes! Perfect pic of adults showing the difference. Thank you, James. Would it be OK to link to your picture for future threads?

 

[jmhappycowboy]

Quote:
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