Frizzled Serama - Is this a curley?

[racuda]

She didn't look like a curley along side her other frizzled hatchmates. She is a 9.7 ounce, 8 month old pullet. Out of 11 birds, 4 are frizzles and two of them look like this:

Here she is with two others that look fine:

I've checked them for mites and I haven't seen any feather picking, so I'm wondering if her (and the other one's) feathers are brittle and breaking off because of a double dose of the frizzle gene.

 

[Elphaba2140]

That chick looks like it could be a Frazzle-A Frizzle with two copies of the genes.

 

[StevenW.]

Yes, it looks like the parents were a Frizzle Rooster and Hen. You get Frazzled when you breed a Frizzle and Frizzle.

 

[racuda]

I'll ask the breeder. I don't think he would have bred frizzle with frizzle though. He is the one who started frizzled Seramas by introducing the frizzle gene.

 

[racuda]

She is with a smooth rooster, so if I incubate her eggs and 100% of the chicks are frizzles, then that would show that she is a curley, or "frazzle".

 

[Larkspur88]

I'm not an expert, but she doesn't look curly. My curly actually looked frazzled even as a chick then the feathers looked like a bad perm as they developed. Feathers fell off easily. She looked hideous and then once she got her adult plumage in she seemed to stabilize more and her feathers actually look curly-feathered.

This is my curly aka frazzle:

 

[BluegrassSeramas]

Yay! I found pics!
Hey Randall!
Patrick forwarded me the message and we were talking about your birds, but I couldn't see the pictures, so I thought I would hunt here.
Are they both white birds that are molting like this? I'll see what we can figure out, but they shouldn't be curlies (or Frazzled? is what some are calling them)
unless the eggs were somehow fertilized by a roo that the hen had long been removed from in a "keeping" not breeding pen..... BUT I dont think we have ever kept a breeding frizzled white roo. We generally have smooth whites to cross with frizzled white hens. (Some might have a bit of red around the head, since that is a newer line and we are still working out that part as it pops up.)
We've had the frizzled white males but usually sold them, since we have colored frizzled roos that are from older and more typey lines.

Ill have to ask Patrick though, and look at my bazillion chicken breeder's pics, but from the ones I have seen in the last few minutes of quickly searching, the young white frizzled males were in the "sell" pics.
I think I had one that was nice and I was going to raise him out, but very young and didn't make it through the winter. Must go record hunting......

One answer I have now is an experience with Phyllis.
Here is her picture.

She had nice soft thick feathers, but in her second year she had the worst molt ever. I have records of her breeding back for generations, since she was one of the first nearly "pure" frizzled serama and there are no curlies, or frizzled crossings in there.
I probably don't have any pics of her in the molt, but she just went mostly bald and looked terrible.

I nicknamed her "Skeletor" for this occurrence.

She just had a few feathers on her body randomly, with long primaries, but without the webbing. She just had long naked quills sticking out of her wings,and a little bit of fuzz on her rear. She looked like she had been plucked. She never did this but once, and I have no idea why, she was on the same regimen as the other frizzles. I've never had a frizzle molt like that. Sometimes they do have a bit of baldness at the top of the wing (more often) and back of the neck (less often) like yours when molting but I dont think I've seen one that didn't grow them back. I think we have had that happen with first molts, Im going to have to see if I wrote down anything like that, or have pics.
With Phyllis, I gave her her own pen with deep shavings, kept her inside my building, made sure she was parasite free, added protein to her diet, and just waited. She grew them all back in time and never did it again. I think I gave her vitamins as well in the beginning... probably PolyViSol.
Im thinking that yours will do the same, but keep us posted. I know that Patrick would love to have a curly to keep indoors if there is one already out there from our line to get 100% frizzles out of.
Thanks! Keep us posted. Id like to know what they do!

 

[BluegrassSeramas]

Quote:
Make sure to write us if you do!

Also, just found my 2010 record folder.
3 White smooth 5 month old roos, kept two as breeders, sold one, ended up culling the other who never developed, and looked like a hen, probably infertile
1 nice frizzled roo, 5 months old, in with my best smooth roo EVER--kids left pen open and they escaped and were eaten?, found white feathers only in field

Kept one white frizzled male, 2 months in October--- didnt make it though the winter...

So... Im thinking that if these are from the white line, the bigger smooth roo, that I still have, was the Father.
I have pics of all these, Ill get on Photobucket at some point.
The one the kids let out was really nice for his age looking at his pics again. A shame to lose him!!

 

[racuda]

Quote:
Thanks for looking up the info Jessi.

I have four solid whites from your line, 3 pullets and a cockerel. The other one with the same issue looks a lot like your Phyllis, long naked quills and all.

I'll try giving them extra protein and vitamins. And I'm going to put the white frizzle pullet with this smooth white cockerel and see what happens. I took this pic tonight while they were roosting:

 

[BluegrassSeramas]

Oooh.....I love his tail. He's pretty cute!!!

Phyllis looked similar to that hen, but got worse. She was nearly naked.
I just keep feeding her to death, and giving her special attention and she eventually molted them and grew back her nice fluffy feathers. I think I even considered plucking out the quills, but thought that would really really hurt, so I didnt.
Patrick kept a few breeding pens in his basement when they couldn't be outside in his yard.
I think the frizzleds didnt do as well indoors, since I think the air was dryer in there.
(The clothes dryer sucked out all the moisture down there,and Phyllis was at Patrick's before I got her during the middle of the bad molt.)
I have had less problems here, but my birds are mostly outdoors. They get sun, dirt, rain and grass most of the year.
If they are in the shed, its not deep and has two open doors on each side, so they have tons of fresh air in the indoor pens.
Im not sure if that has anything to do with it, but I also have curly hair, and I can see where moisturizing conditioner helps me..so maybe moister air helps them?
I've always kind of thought that.
Might start spraying leave-in conditioner on my frizzles that I want to show this fall, lol
Ill let you know if it works.

Are any of these in chicken tractors?
Might try that?