Allie & Bino, the albino orpington chicks

[chippysmom327]

Here is the third one:

I'll try to get pics with the other three that hatched for comparison. Two are dark, one is yellow.

This is all a fluke. I'm just a small guy not really trying to breed anything special other than hardy birds for personal use. My original birds, from which these are third generation, were from two sources on eBay. I raise my birds for eggs and meat. No artificial light, no special diet, no heat in winter. My flocks are not particularly friendly. I don't baby them, the strong survive. My runs are open, I have predators. I want them to be wary. I sell maybe a dozen or two birds a year for backyard flocks to get rid of my excess. I've sold a few dozen eggs locally for hatching over a couple years.
The eggs chippysmom327 got were a combination of her needing eggs for the easter hatch and me wanting to try to ship for the first time.
I really have no idea how to handle this situation other than to enjoy watching her raise them. The other eggs mentioned actually shipped before this took off, a deal between friends with some random mixed eggs.

Awesome!!! I'm so happy for you!

 

[thechxwhisperer]

Wow! So Chiques Chick has an albino chick too! It's the albino chick month!

 

[chiques chicks]

The four eggs and four babies. As you can see, it is pie chance and they are very varied.

When I separated the white one to give it vitamins, it started chirping for its friends. They don't seem to be picking on it. I keep them in a very dim room with a red heat lamp at chippy's suggestion.

 

[Kev]

Wow congrats! Loving the color variety.

That comment- is it apparent if light actually bothers them or not?

Was wondering about that, as birds eyes have some differences from mammal eyes.. in some bird species they are able to basically look directly at sun with not much bother. So if chickens have that adaption in their eyes, are albino chickens able to tolerate sunlight much better than albino mammals...?

 

[paris_r]

The four eggs and four babies. As you can see, it is pie chance and they are very varied.




When I separated the white one to give it vitamins, it started chirping for its friends. They don't seem to be picking on it. I keep them in a very dim room with a red heat lamp at chippy's suggestion.

yep, that has the 'glow' on the face around the eyes or an albino. would you be willing to offer up eggs for sale to others? or if you want trades i have a novel from of duccle

 

[chiques chicks]

I don't know. That is what makes chippy's experiences so interesting. I'm following her lead.

We both googled albino chicken and found very little information other than they rarely live more than a few days. That she has them at three weeks is extraordinary.

I think she is uncharted waters. Our assumption is that light and UV will harm them. They seem to have vision problems.

She is three weeks to a month ahead of me. She will have far better information.

With luck she is keeping track of everything and will write a paper on it, become famous and pay her way through college off a couple free eggs!

 

[paris_r]

We both googled albino chicken and found very little information other than they rarely live more than a few days. That she has them at three weeks is extraordinary.

try using google scholar and use the terms 'albinism poultry' you will get many results

 

[Kev]

Haha! (college comment)

Having naked necks and even naked all over chickens, I get a fair amount of assumptions and "free advice" from other people. Like they need sunscreen, they cannot mate naturally, they cannot.. they need this or that........ No they don't need X and they do Y just fine... To be fair, I have made wrong assumptions before, so I tend to be a little skeptical and just test things out firsthand.

Hope they won;t be affected by UV and do allright outdoors to do chickeny things...

 

[chiques chicks]

Having very little understanding of genetics, or even a college degree,a large part of what I find in journals is beyond me, unfortunately.

I'm just a simple guy in the country who works in a factory and had something turn up in his flock.

I think a broody may have hatched one last year. It walked around dazed and died after a few days. I never looked at it closely, just threw it in the compost.

 

[chiques chicks]

I should mention, I am not NPIP, or even overly biosecure. With AI tearing it's ugly head again, things could get bad. I am in a poultry intensive area that was devastated by AI in the early '80s.