What mix and gender is my chick?

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

They (people who sold the bird to you) may have just mixed up a couple birds and thought that was a Barred Rock.
Maybe she is a cross, or maybe has no Barred Rock at all.

 

[Homo sapien]

I know that could be possible but she is from a farm store so the farm store probably bought her from a hatchery and I would be surprised if the hatchery could not tell what a barred rock was. Of course it could also be a mistake from the side of the farm store but I do not think that is likely. My hypothesis is that her mother was a Barred Rock but she accidentally fertilized her egg with a different breed of rooster than a barred rock and that is how her chick got mistaken for one.

She also has the shape of my Barred Rock and the egg color along with starting laying at around the same age.

 

[NatJ]

If a Black Wyandotte rooster was bred with a Barred Plymouth Rock hen could it create a hen like her? By the way her name is Matilda.

Yes, with a rose comb (not cushion).

A Svart Hona (Swedish Black) chicken would be another one.

Yes, I listed them with Silkies and Ayam Cemani as having the genes for black skin and meat and everything else.

I know that could be possible but she is from a farm store

Oh, your chick came from a farm store? For some reason I thought she hatched from an egg from someone's backyard flock. Coming from a farm store would somewhat limit the list of possibilities.

so the farm store probably bought her from a hatchery and I would be surprised if the hatchery could not tell what a barred rock was. Of course it could also be a mistake from the side of the farm store but I do not think that is likely. My hypothesis is that her mother was a Barred Rock but she accidentally fertilized her egg with a different breed of rooster than a barred rock and that is how her chick got mistaken for one.

If your chick came from a farm store, then the most likely explanation the farm store mixing up the chicks. That is pretty common at some farm stores. Sometimes the people do not know what different breeds look like, and sometimes the chicks mix themselves by jumping into a different bin.

I think mis-identification at the store is much more likely than a hatchery letting a hen mate with the wrong rooster, or shipping a wrong chick.

She also has the shape of my Barred Rock and the egg color along with starting laying at around the same age.

There are many kinds of dual purpose chickens that have those same traits, so she's most likely a dual purpose breed or mix, but I don't think we can narrow it down to specifically Barred Rock.

Can you post a clearer picture of her comb? That may help with sorting out what the possibilities are. Breeds tend to be quite specific about what kind of comb they are supposed to have.

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

I know that could be possible but she is from a farm store so the farm store probably bought her from a hatchery and I would be surprised if the hatchery could not tell what a barred rock was. Of course it could also be a mistake from the side of the farm store but I do not think that is likely. My hypothesis is that her mother was a Barred Rock but she accidentally fertilized her egg with a different breed of rooster than a barred rock and that is how her chick got mistaken for one.

She also has the shape of my Barred Rock and the egg color along with starting laying at around the same age.

Ahhhhhh that's different, then.
I thought you bought from a person who had their own flock, not from a store.

Hatcheries separate their breeds and crosses, so there's an extremely low possibility of "accidentally the wrong rooster" (I won't say "no chance". But it is very unlikely, as they kind of need to be reliable)

Sometimes birds get mixed up during shipping
And it's actually very common for store chicks to be mislabeled (*whether that's because the hatchery gave the wrong info, or the store messed up, who knows) or for a few chicks to end up in the wrong bin.

I think most stores only work with a few hatcheries, so it's usually relatively easy to narrow down possibilities (no guarantees)

 

[NatJ]

If I pretend that her mother was a Barred Rock and that is how she got yellow skin on her body and bottoms of feet, and mistaken for one, what breed or mixed rooster could have made her have a cushion comb and black on the top of her feet and top of comb and kept the color of her feathers black?

To revisit this, if the chick came from a store:
chicks that will be solid black, and chicks that have white barring (like Barred Rocks) do look quite similar when they are young.
BUT, there is a light dot on top of the head for the ones that will be barred, and not for the ones that will be solid black. And as soon as they start growing wing feathers, the white barring should be present in barred chicks but not in solid black chicks. (Some solid black chicks will have a few white wing feathers when they are young, but it looks different than barring.)

Mixing up black chicks with barred chicks is easy if you do not know what to look for (dot on the head), so I could easily see someone at the store grabbing chicks that "look like" Barred Rock chicks. Once you know to look for the head, you can sort them out quite easily.

Comb type can be hard to see on tiny just-hatched chicks, but if you know to look for it, you often can tell what kind of comb the chick has. So that is another way this chick could have been recognized as not a Barred Rock, if someone had known to look for that detail when selling the chick.

She laid her first egg today!View attachment 4262299

Can you post an updated picture of her? Appearance can change around the time a pullet starts to lay eggs, so maybe that would give more clues about what she actually is.

 

[lavendermarie]

I’m guessing she’s a pullet. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s an Easter Egger Australorp mix!

 

[Homo sapien]

Can you post a clearer picture of her comb? That may help with sorting out what the possibilities are. Breeds tend to be quite specific about what kind of comb they are supposed to have.

Here are some:
On a few (two or three) of her hackle feathers she has a small bit of brown. You can't see it in the photos.

 

[NatJ]

Here are some:
On a few (two or three) of her hackle feathers she has a small bit of brown. You can't see it in the photos.

Thanks!

That sure does look like a cushion comb.

It is wide enough I am sure it has the rose comb gene.
And the small size, combined with the lack of obvious wattles, makes me pretty sure it has the pea comb gene as well.

I wonder if some hatchery is developing Black Chanteclers? (I doubt it, but Chantecler is the only dual-purpose breed I can think of that has a cushion comb.)

Some hatcheries are doing various Silkie-mixes, but I don't see anything that looks like a Silkie other than the comb: no crest, no extra toe, no feathers on the feet. It would be really unusual to get rid of all those other traits and keep the comb. (The actual silkie-type feathers are caused by a recessive gene, so it's easy to get normal feathering in Silkie-mix chickens.)

She is a really pretty chicken, but she has me pretty thoroughly stumped.

Oh, I suppose I should ask this: what country are you in? Different breeds are common in different countries, and I tend to think of the ones in the USA because that's where I live.

 

[Homo sapien]

Oh, I suppose I should ask this: what country are you in? Different breeds are common in different countries, and I tend to think of the ones in the USA because that's where I live.

Canada.

 

[LaurenRitz]

Do you know what hatchery your store used? Might be able to narrow it down that way.