# Can someone tell me if these chicks have a gene making their feathers look scraggly (frizzle, frazzle, etc) or if there’s something wrong with them?



## amberrose (Apr 5, 2021)

I recently hatched 6 serama chicks (one (roo) was a surprise from my silkies and is almost 2 weeks older than the other 5, who were planned and hatched on 06/20/22.) Anyway, I didn’t notice at first, but 3 of the chick’s feathers look normal, and 3 of them look scraggly. And by scraggly, I mean the feathers aren’t opened up like the others and they look like frizzle, frazzle, sizzle, ? one of those types of chickens I’ve seen, but after asking the guy I bought the parents from, and him saying there could be that gene, or it could be feather mites, now I’m getting worried. None of the parents looked like this when they were chicks and I need to figure this out. Are these feather mite infested chicks, malnourished, special gene or what? Oh, and just so you know. They get fed medicated feed and the vitamin/probiotic water daily and I switch it out with regular water, as well as clean the water out daily, so a vitamin deficiency doesn’t seem right, but I’m open to any ideas.
















Here is a pic of them a couple weeks ago. 
And here’s them recently. 








































These are the look of the wings of the ones that might have issues. Thanks for reading.


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## amberrose (Apr 5, 2021)

Oh and I forgot to mention I can’t find bug poop on their vents or skin, but some of them have mostly normal looking feathers. This is the view from the top.


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## amberrose (Apr 5, 2021)

After doing some research I think if this is how they’re supposed to look it’s called silkied serama. This is the best pic I could find online that is similar looking to these chicks.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

More story, please.

Are these from your birds? Eggs you got from someone? 

If they're from yours have you hatched from them before? 

I'd like learn if this is a genetic hiccup that just popped up. Or if you got the eggs from someone they knew they're birds were hatching Silkied Seramas.


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## fuzzies (Jul 27, 2021)

Yes, your babies are silkied Seramas! Lucky you!  The silkied gene is not uncommon in Seramas, often hiding as it is recessive and popping up to surprise you every now and then. Both parents must be carrying the gene in order for it to pop up, so that means your pair both carry the gene. The harder feathers of the wings and tails can look pretty ratty in silkied birds, especially in their juvenile feathering, but this is perfectly normal. Once they're feathered in in their adult plumage, it is less noticeable.


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## amberrose (Apr 5, 2021)

robin416 said:


> More story, please.
> 
> Are these from your birds? Eggs you got from someone?
> 
> ...


So, I hatched out my first eggs last November in an incubator. The eggs came from my 5 straight feathered serama I bought as chicks that spring. 2 pullets, 3 Roos. (The parents.) the babies ended up being 2 pullets and 3 Roos, just like the parents. The weird thing is that those 3 lil’ roo’s matched the adult Roos almost exactly, like twins, and the girls looked like their moms. I just really wanted to hatch them and I think the silkies just live for trying to hatch every egg they find lol. I wasn’t planning on incubating these eggs that just hatched. I wanted to find a different pullet or roo so that they weren’t hatching their siblings chicks, but a raccoon. 4 of them. Big mama and 3 pups broke in and killed every one of my serama within 30 minutes, except one male cause I have a trail cam out there that alerted me. It was awful. Seeing that empty run and the one surviving rooster wondering where his family was. The mom and baby raccoons kept coming back and getting them quickly. I patched the holes the next day and am reinforcing it again today, with more hardware cloth and more zip ties, more everything cause I can’t go through that again. It looked so barren out there, I took all the eggs I collected from the serama the past week and replaced the silkies un-fertilized eggs she was trying to hatch and they all hatched, but 2 weren’t fertile. So, now I have these 6 chicks and then 3 just look all crazy like they thought they wanted to be silkies since I did let the silkies hatch most of them before I brought them inside. So, I think that’s most of the life story of how this happened. Shorter story: I bought the serama chicks from a breeder near me. I don’t think he had any silkied ones because he let me check them all out. Those chicks had 5 babies, they grew up and I hatched their eggs because I just couldn’t let my little serama run out there be so empty and sad after the raccoons got them. They all seemed healthy as ever, no deformities, got along great, then I see the feathers and my heart sunk cause I’m like WHAT DID I DO. I wasn’t sure what was going on. If they were unhealthy or diseased or bad genes or what. Anyway, soooo, lol I can’t believe 3/6 eggs were silkied chicks when the parents and grand parents weren’t. Isn’t that weird? I really hope these are for sure silkied chicks cause those things look pretty funny and interesting.








These are the parents. (Red is the rooster that made it.) One of the hens had a sideways foot (deformed foot) when hatched, and I assumed either because the parents were siblings, or because it was my first time trying to incubate eggs and I messed something up, or maybe both? Ahhhh there’s so much to learn constantly with raising chickens. So ya, do you think the silkied chicks are from the grandparents passing the recessive gene to two of these guys and luck made those 2 the parents and to create the silkied babies I now have? Or did some silkied rooster sneak in and decide to make some babies with my serama.  This is crazy. I can’t wait to see what they become. I hope they won’t have health issues. I almost want to put them in separate runs so they don’t breed all together again, but they love eachother.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I had real trouble following what you were saying. These peeps are peeps hatched from your birds and those birds were all related to each other? 

And now you have a bunch of offspring that are F3's? 

If you don't want issues stop any other breeding with the group. You're getting really close to where genetic problems begin to show up.


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## amberrose (Apr 5, 2021)

robin416 said:


> I had real trouble following what you were saying. These peeps are peeps hatched from your birds and those birds were all related to each other?
> 
> And now you have a bunch of offspring that are F3's?
> 
> If you don't want issues stop any other breeding with the group. You're getting really close to where genetic problems begin to show up.


Oh god, that’s what I was afraid of after thinking about the feather thing being a genetic issue, but reading about the line breeding and missing my little seramas caused me to make an impulsive decision I suppose. My sebright’s hate me unless I have food in my hand, and even then they run after they take it, it’s crazy. They act like I beat them, but I had them day 1, so they are tricky to tame. First breed I couldn’t make love me, or at least tolerate me petting them. (I’m sort of kidding about needing to hatch these chicks) because I don’t want health issues, even at the risk of missing the last flock so much. I was seriously searching for the perfect addition, then that happened and I guess I made a dangerous mistake?  you know what, I will just have to not allow any eggs to hatch and I could keep them together hey? Or, I also have another larger coop outside the big run that is open I could actually separate them if I needed to. It would be great if they would just not breed their siblings, cousins, uncles, and would be a lot simpler. The original chicks weren’t siblings, they came from someone who had the pairs together in separate coops, and let them out separately, and he said he got the serama from reputable breeders that he added to his flock, so I really hope they weren’t. Can you tell me what I have in store for these chicks from being born from sibling parents tho? And honestly I had a hard time following what I wrote, cause I wrote it in parts at different times, and it was a LOT, and then I was like WHOA, and sent hoping it made some sense, so I don’t blame you for being confused too. Short: original chickens from breeder mated and had babies I hatched. Those babies grew up, got killed and so I hatched their eggs I collected the week before, to have these babies. That makes more sense. Why didn’t I just say that? I hope no heart disease or other serious things . Oh geeze I have to do some more research now, I love them so much already. The bigger one looks out for the little ones, even on day one, he was bigger but he loved the chicks. 🫣teach meee everything you know 🫥


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Deep breath. 

So, you're saying this is the first hatch from the group that were decimated? If true, then all is good. And you can do a breed back once with them without issues. But if you want more, you're going to have to bring in at least another pair or a couple hens. 

Or see if you can get a few eggs from the original person you got your birds from when the girls go broody. 

Usually when they're too related to each other you see physical issues. Poor feathering, poor conformation. That type of thing.


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## amberrose (Apr 5, 2021)

robin416 said:


> Deep breath.
> 
> So, you're saying this is the first hatch from the group that were decimated? If true, then all is good. And you can do a breed back once with them without issues. But if you want more, you're going to have to bring in at least another pair or a couple hens.
> 
> ...


Yeah these are the first chicks from the ones the raccoon got. I never left their eggs before because of the whole, sibling thing. Yeah getting different eggs would be a good idea. I don’t really wanna get another 15 pack of chicks shipped because I can’t handle all those roosters they ALWAYS send. Even when I get specific chickens that they claim to sex, I still get 6 roosters out of 15. No more  They drive me crazy with all their crowing and fighting, and we don’t kill our chickens so it was sort of a nightmare last time finding a home for the 5-6 roosters. If I got some eggs tho, just a few, especially serama, they’re a little less annoying crowing and just one or two rehomed wouldn’t be so bad.  I’m already having this suspicious feeling that 3 of these 6 chicks are roos, at least. I wish there was a way to just hatch pullets when you wanted them..  but I’ll figure something out. Don’t want health issues. I’ve not been this excited for my chicks to mature, cause I wanna see what those silkied chicks end up looking like. It will happen in no time I’m sure, and I’ll miss the chicks.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

That's the problem with bantams, they can't be sexed like large fowl are. The only way is feather sexing on bantams and it's not cheap.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> I had real trouble following what you were saying. These peeps are peeps hatched from your birds and those birds were all related to each other?
> 
> And now you have a bunch of offspring that are F3's?
> 
> If you don't want issues stop any other breeding with the group. You're getting really close to where genetic problems begin to show up.


There's an old breeder saying that you often can get away with a genetic breeding anomaly for one generation but not two. At that point if you are considering trying to replicate a particular characteristic you have to change the breeding and or one of the birds.


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## amberrose (Apr 5, 2021)

robin416 said:


> That's the problem with bantams, they can't be sexed like large fowl are. The only way is feather sexing on bantams and it's not cheap.


Well, so far I know there’s at least 2 roos. The other 4 are taking their time with their combs. I’m 99% there’s 1 pullet. It’s just too shy and stays down like they always seem to do. The scary thing is, if I had to guess right now, I would say it’s 5 roosters and 1 hen. OR, 4 roosters, 1 hen, 1 that is undecided because sometimes shy, sometimes all confident reminding me of the roosters. =P I managed to have the 3 roos together previously and they got along, but idk about 5.. lol. I think I will go crazy from their constant crowing and bickering. These types of chickens seem to get along pretty well tho, even with their arguments. Now, my polish roosters wouldn’t stop fighting to the death, but were the sweetest affectionate ones, my Hamburg rooster will never quit, and the sebright roos were the meanest of all. Chickens are crazy.


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## amberrose (Apr 5, 2021)

Poultry Judge said:


> There's an old breeder saying that you often can get away with a genetic breeding anomaly for one generation but not two. At that point if you are considering trying to replicate a particular characteristic you have to change the breeding and or one of the birds.


Oh I’m not allowing anymore breeding with these guys. I might just put the girls in with my silkies. They love to adopt, and boss around new chickens, and the roos, depending how many can go in the other run, or might rehome some. We will see how this goes.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I want to see pics when they're all grown up. I haven't seen Silkied Seramas yet. 

@fuzzies has her Silkied Cochins and they're stunning.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> I want to see pics when they're all grown up. I haven't seen Silkied Seramas yet.
> 
> @fuzzies has her Silkied Cochins and they're stunning.


Yes, that would be exciting, perhaps the next craze, like EEs were.


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## fuzzies (Jul 27, 2021)

robin416 said:


> I want to see pics when they're all grown up. I haven't seen Silkied Seramas yet.


I've seen some, both in pictures and in person. They are beautiful, but I love just about anything with silkied feathering!  A little hard to come by, though. I've always wanted some of the little darlings. Hopefully some day!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Oh oh. Pip knows someone with Silkied Seramas.


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