wyandotte hen with single comb?

[RisingSpring]

i have 2 silver-laced wyandottes. for the longest time i couldn't tell them apart, i just called them the twins. until a few weeks ago (not sure why it took me so long haha) i noticed that they have different combs!! i looked it up, and sure enough i read that wyandottes normally have a rose comb. my one girl has a rose comb, but the other girl has a single comb! the hens are identical otherwise, and i got them from the same farm last summer when they were already a few months old. i don't think they were hatched at that farm, but i think they come from the same place.

so is this just a fluke, the one hen maybe coming from a different mom or something?

 

[chickened]

I know with the BLRW breeders will use RIR with straight combs for color adjustments. If it is hatchery stock most likely white leghorn is in its lineage giving the chance for straight comb while trying to improve laying or the breeder used another color of bird to enhance the silver.

Sometimes when collecting eggs for pure breedings there is not a long enough time waited for the eggs that are fertilized by a previous rooster to have been laid and the birds are not pure but are similar.

 

[speckledhen]

Wyandottes have Cochin ancestry so you sometimes will get a single comb, sometimes will have a few feather stubs pop up. Most folks who are "breeders" got their original stock from a hatchery and have no idea how to improve them; in other words, they are not breeders, but propagators, so you are still buying hatchery stock. Seems almost 1/4 of hatchery Wyandottes have single combs from what I've been able to tell.

 

[farmerChef]

The sigle comb gene is recessive, so a roe combed bird can carry the single comb gene, but not show it. Then, when 2 birds that carry the gene are bred together, you get single combed chicks

 

[McGeheesfarm]

Yeah, it happens. I have some very nice Silver Laced Wyandotte Standard size birds and I had one hatch that had a straight comb. Its just the recessive gene.

I have also heard that having a straight comb in your line from time to time helps with fertility. I have no evidence that this is true, just something I have heard.

 

[BlazeJester]

Yup.

 

[Coop de Grille]

I have four Wyandottes and one of them also has a single comb. But I'm pretty certain all four of mine are cockerels.

 

[BlazeJester]

If they're hatchery birds, apparently this is pretty common. Of two columbian wyandottes, one of mine has a straight comb and one has a rose comb.

 

[speckledhen]

Actually, it's fairly common among hatchery stock. One of my Wyandottes, all hatchery hens, had a single--coincidentally, she was also the worst body type of all the Wyandottes I had, much too lean.

 

[Coop de Grille]

Mine are not hatchery chicks. I got them from a local guy that hatches them.