Not a dot, not a bullseye...?

An egg from today from the theta-shape hen is now back to more what I'd been seeing from her before the thetas started. You can see some of the theta shape is still there but it's more wonky than that. I had been interpreting this as infertile but it is quite strange. I don't know if it makes any difference, but this hen is a giant cochin cross (I don't know the other half of the cross). The rooster is also a cochin cross with an unknown.
View attachment 4110319

Meanwhile for comparison, these other 3 eggs from different hens who are with the same rooster.

Infertile from a purebred cochin hen who does not mate with the roo.
View attachment 4110318

Fertile from another pure cochin hen; I am incubating two of these eggs right now. Both eggs in the incubator are showing good development with one week left to go.
View attachment 4110317

And then I got a pacman today from 4th pure cochin hen that has been giving me a roughly 50/50 mix of clear fertile and infertile (tried to incubate 2 of hers and they were duds...). That's the first occurrence of a weird shape from someone other than my cochin cross hen. Maybe it's something to do with the roo???
View attachment 4110316

It seems like I have two main possibilities:
  • Something about the blastodisc is just mucked up, rendering it unable to develop even if fertilized. This would be an issue from the hen.
  • I have one of the fast-acting lethal traits lurking in one or more individuals. This could be from either parent or both...
In a purely scientific analysis, that first picture clearly shows a smiley face. That hen is LAUGHING over our confusion!
 
Some pictures of the one chick I mentioned from the rooster in question and a Cochin hen:

Chick's left side:
IMG_2666b.jpg

IMG_2692 (1).jpg

The brown feathrs kind of form a half-ring at the base of the neck. They are unfortunately partly covered up by white feathers a lot of the time.

Right side:
IMG_2695.jpg

I keep waiting for a brown feather to show up somewhere anywhere on this side but hasn't happened so far...nothing being hidden by other white feathers either.
 
This pic shows the chick’s partial herterochromia, which is also associated with chimerism. That’s not the light reflection - top and bottom halves of the iris are different colors. Pupils and light response etc is all normal and healthy in both eyes.
IMG_2691.jpeg
 
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