Chat room for non religious poultry keepers! :D

[RoyalChick]

Wow. Very pretty.

I'd love to get a muffed/bearded bird, because I think they looks so adorably cute. They're different enough, though, that I might be asking for trouble for her. So I resist.

Like silkies, the "pantaloons" look pretty, but right now, I'm just enjoying them in other people's pictures. But I really enjoy them.

I have a mix.
Two are no crest, clean legs, no beard.
Three have beards (one of which also has feathered legs).
Two have little crests.
So the feathered leg one is the only one with that characteristic but she is a very big bird so I don’t think the others would be likely to try and peck her feet. She might just squash them if they tried!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Interesting! No plans to show her, and don't care that she has this. I don't want feathered legs in my flock, as I can't see them staying clean. Maybe, maybe not?

When it's been rainy and muddy, my feather-legged birds do get dirty foot feathers, but they otherwise keep them clean, and with one exception (mud balls that like to harden to the tips of their long foot feathers), it always dries and flakes off of them like with the clean-legged birds once the mud has tamed down. I suspect if my coop was not in such a bad location for drainage that they would have no issues keeping them clean, but as it is there is constantly mud just outside the coop door whenever we have a lot of rain.

My Cochins in my breeding coops don't have issues with that, however, because they are housed in pens that don't get significant mud. They always have lovely, clean foot feathering. Pristine, as RoyalChick put it!

Wow. Very pretty.

I'd love to get a muffed/bearded bird, because I think they looks so adorably cute. They're different enough, though, that I might be asking for trouble for her. So I resist.

Like silkies, the "pantaloons" look pretty, but right now, I'm just enjoying them in other people's pictures. But I really enjoy them.

I don't buy into the whole 'chickens picking on an individual for them looking different' thing, or the 'birds of a feather' thing that a lot of people say happens with chickens. Having had chickens since childhood, nearly two decades now, and only occasionally having more than a few individuals of each breed in all that time up until recently, I have never noticed a significant amount of segregation or bullying by appearance. The only time that I have seen any kind of bullying because of a visual trait was less because of how the bird looked and more because that trait blocked the victim's ability to see the attacker coming; for example, Polish of any color are very often the victims of these cases--and very often can't see anything but their own feet because of their huge crests.

I think it has more to do with temperaments of the birds than with appearances, personally. One of the most bullied birds I have owned did not look significantly different than other birds in the flock at the time, she's just a very meek individual in general and got pushed around a lot when she was younger. So as far as that goes, I would not worry about appearances so much (except for large crests) and look more into the breed's reputation for temperament. Especially coming into an established flock as a newcomer, I could see some of the bearded breeds with a reputation for being very docile and gentle, like Silkies and Faverolles, being the victim of bullying. Your good ol' standard bearded Easter-eggers tend toward being less meek and more bold, and mine get along great in a mixed flock of various temperaments.

Just my two cents there, though.

 

[Sally PB]

Just my two cents there, though

Worth a lot, though. Thank you!

 

[fluffycrow]

Wow, that's very interesting, did not know there were so many leg feather genes at play! I know nothing about Cruella's parentage, so it's possible. I do know about Lady Gaga (BIG parenthesis here, since I failed to mention this when going over the colour genes my serama have. After the last conversation on this, I realised I was being a total idiot. I hand picked all my serama to get the best ones conformationaly, and while at the breeder's house, I was shown their parents). Since he is a serama, and his parents don't have feathered shanks, this probably only comes from Cruella? Unless one parent carries it, and managed to pass it onto Gaga (no, I did not meet the grandparents, or at least I was not introduced to them, so I don't know if something like that could be true. And no, I'm not forgetting anything this time). Anyhow, this is all very interesting. I'm personally leaning towards some inhibitor Gene not passing through, if I understand correctly. And yes, I lost this thread for a hot minute

Leg feathering is caused by several genes. I never remember off the top of my head how many, like 4 or 5 I think? I know some are recessive and some are dominant. Not sure if there is a partial dominant or not unless you count vulture hocks that are referred to both as a partial dominant and as a recessive depending on the source, but that is definitely not what that baby is expressing. A lot of people assume that leg feathering is a partial dominant because crossing a heavily leg-feathered breed to a clean-shanked breed generally makes birds with an intermediate amount of leg feathering, but that is because the recessive leg feathering genes are carried and not expressed, so only the dominant leg feathering genes express, thus less leg feathering than the parent with all of those genes expressing.

There are other genes that also inhibit leg feathering from my understanding, the dominance of which I don't honestly know. But leg feathering can appear seemingly out of nowhere from non-feather-legged parents, sometimes even out of pure specimens of clean-legged breeds. In your case, however, I would think this was the work of a recessive leg feathering gene that both parents carry (so this baby just happened to inherit it from both parents and thus has leg feathering), or the work of a leg feather inhibitor either being recessive and from one parent (so the baby inherits one copy and does not express it, thus leg feathering occurred) or dominant and heterozygous in one or both parents (so the baby just happened not to inherit it and leg feathering occurred).




This is called feather stubs, at least for the purposes of showing. Not sure if that gene is considered as one among the leg feathering genes, but it's recessive from my understanding.

 

[fluffycrow]

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing that knowledge in an easy to understand way.

That is something I really appreciate about pipd. Pipd always makes the effort to explain chicken stuff in such a way that is approachable, and understandable. So, thanks pipd!

 

[fluffycrow]

When it's been rainy and muddy, my feather-legged birds do get dirty foot feathers, but they otherwise keep them clean, and with one exception (mud balls that like to harden to the tips of their long foot feathers), it always dries and flakes off of them like with the clean-legged birds once the mud has tamed down. I suspect if my coop was not in such a bad location for drainage that they would have no issues keeping them clean, but as it is there is constantly mud just outside the coop door whenever we have a lot of rain.

My Cochins in my breeding coops don't have issues with that, however, because they are housed in pens that don't get significant mud. They always have lovely, clean foot feathering. Pristine, as RoyalChick put it!




I don't buy into the whole 'chickens picking on an individual for them looking different' thing, or the 'birds of a feather' thing that a lot of people say happens with chickens. Having had chickens since childhood, nearly two decades now, and only occasionally having more than a few individuals of each breed in all that time up until recently, I have never noticed a significant amount of segregation or bullying by appearance. The only time that I have seen any kind of bullying because of a visual trait was less because of how the bird looked and more because that trait blocked the victim's ability to see the attacker coming; for example, Polish of any color are very often the victims of these cases--and very often can't see anything but their own feet because of their huge crests.

I think it has more to do with temperaments of the birds than with appearances, personally. One of the most bullied birds I have owned did not look significantly different than other birds in the flock at the time, she's just a very meek individual in general and got pushed around a lot when she was younger. So as far as that goes, I would not worry about appearances so much (except for large crests) and look more into the breed's reputation for temperament. Especially coming into an established flock as a newcomer, I could see some of the bearded breeds with a reputation for being very docile and gentle, like Silkies and Faverolles, being the victim of bullying. Your good ol' standard bearded Easter-eggers tend toward being less meek and more bold, and mine get along great in a mixed flock of various temperaments.

Just my two cents there, though.

Here, my experiences have been completely different. I will admit, that my most rough case of bullying, the victim was not only different in looks, but also in temperament. Having said that, I do notice serious group splits between birds that look differently. Most of the time it does not turn aggressive, but they are opportunistic, and whenever a bird is feeling poorly, they will go after it. I think I've referenced this many times before, but it's the story of Koutsi. She fell ill at around 1 and a half years old. She was picked on by everyone, but her sibling ISA brown (I had some older ISA brown in there, they picked on her as well, and that's why I believe it's also an age thing, but not as much as the newly introduced Tsouloufati) she got separated to get healed, and you know the rest of that. About one and a half to two years later, the injured Tsouloufati was added to her Med bay pen. They spent over six months together, but then I needed the pen for the serama, plus they had started to get bored. They were introduced back into the main flock. The Tsouloufati hen took her place almost immediately, while Koutsi was only accepted by her ISA brown sister (and only remaining ISA brown other than Koutsi). Even the rooster, Kolovos, would not accept her. So I took her out again. While typing this, I realised something else. Koutsi's sister, the matriarch of the main flock. She knew she was head hen, and always was there for her subordinates. Even so, she never really hung out closely with them, sleeping on the other side of the coop from the rest. So, I guess I just want to say that while it does not always turn aggressive, I have definitely experienced this "split". I know that not evryone is not going to share my experience, but that is only natural. I do not want this to seem like I am undermining your experience pipd, because I am really not

 

[Sally PB]

The relationships among chickens, either in groups or pairs, is fascinating to me. I really enjoy all the stories.

 

[fluffycrow]

The relationships among chickens, either in groups or pairs, is fascinating to me. I really enjoy all the stories.

I wholeheartedly agree

 

[ShrekDawg]

I love chickens

 

[Sally PB]

I love chickens

Don't we all?