Do chicken DNA test exist to determine chicken breed?

[LizGio]

I have a mystery chick that was hatched with a bunch of standard golden Comet chicks. The funny this is, this chick was/is black!! Some one said it could be f2 generation. I'm not in contact with the school that hatched these chicks or the hatchery/farm from where they came.

Do DNA tests exist to determine breeds?

Also, what is SOP?

Very new to all of this!
Pictures are all the same bird. He was the only one like this and now just about a month old! And when I say he, that's just a guess.

 

[swamphiker]

SOP is standard of perfection, the breed standard for poultry in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Standard_of_Perfection

 

[Amer]

DNA tests don’t exist to determine the breed. I don’t have a clue about what it is though. Some kind of mix?

 

[SilverBirds]

@TheOddOneOut @Overo Mare

 

[Painted Calls]

DNA tests don’t exist to determine the breed. I don’t have a clue about what it is though. Some kind of mix?

Agreed.

Where did you get your hatching eggs?

 

[LizGio]

Agreed.

Where did you get your hatching eggs?

These were hatched by a school then given to a different farmer to rehome. So we aren't sure

 

[Egger4me]

Looks like my Barnevelder

 

[RiverOtter]

Golden Comets are mutts and don't breed true. And if you don't know where the eggs came from, the little guy could be part anything.

But he's healthy, which is all that matters, as a chicken is a chicken, which is why no, there are no dna tests. Chicken breeds don't differ from each other enough to differentiate dna in a testable way, "breeds" are mainly tiny, genetically negligible (on the grand scale) differences, mainly in color, slightly in size and production (a touch heavier, a bit more fertile, etc) and only rarely something you could track, like the short-legged Scotch Dumpy or the excessively tall Malay. Breeds with extra toes, that sort of thing.

Basically, if you took 99% of chicken breeds, locked them ALL in a football field with ample food and water and came back in 2 generations, you'd see .... chickens. You'd have no way of knowing what the parents or grandparents were, because the breeds are not actually all that different. The last 1% of breeds that 2 generations later you might go, "Wow, is that one part ___?" are pretty much the only ones that differ genetically enough to test, but, the rarest chicken is still far cheaper than developing a dna test to figure out what sort of chicken it is. So unless a scientist with grant money to burn gets curious, your little guy will stay a mystery. He sure is cute though!

 

[Amer]

Golden Comets are mutts and don't breed true. And if you don't know where the eggs came from, the little guy could be part anything.

But he's healthy, which is all that matters, as a chicken is a chicken, which is why no, there are no dna tests. Chicken breeds don't differ from each other enough to differentiate dna in a testable way, "breeds" are mainly tiny, genetically negligible (on the grand scale) differences, mainly in color, slightly in size and production (a touch heavier, a bit more fertile, etc) and only rarely something you could track, like the short-legged Scotch Dumpy or the excessively tall Malay. Breeds with extra toes, that sort of thing.

Basically, if you took 99% of chicken breeds, locked them ALL in a football field with ample food and water and came back in 2 generations, you'd see .... chickens. You'd have no way of knowing what the parents or grandparents were, because the breeds are not actually all that different. The last 1% of breeds that 2 generations later you might go, "Wow, is that one part ___?" are pretty much the only ones that differ genetically enough to test, but, the rarest chicken is still far cheaper than developing a dna test to figure out what sort of chicken it is. So unless a scientist with grant money to burn gets curious, your little guy will stay a mystery. He sure is cute though!

Yeah, the only thing that defines breeds is their standards. If you don’t breed them to the standards, you just have chickens. Which is just fine, really.