Silkie growing normal feathers

[Megamind]

I have this little silkie chick that is about 2 weeks old and it's starting to show hard feathers, but they are softer than usual. I read from other threads that the chick can be mixed, but I hatched this one myself, and both of its parents are silkies. His skin is also white in some places. Any ideas why this happened?

 

[The Moonshiner]

Do you have pics of chick and parents?

 

[Megamind]

 

[AusHen]

Do you have other hens or a rooster that arent silkies?

 

[Megamind]

Not that could’ve gotten to the hens. Those silkies are in their own coop and run. I have this other old rooster that has his own hen and he can’t even fertilize her eggs.

 

[theoldchick]

Years ago my chicken buddies would have called this chick a 'throwback' meaning a normally recessive gene is expressing itself in this particular bird. This is a 'pet quality' Silkie. She'll make a perfectly fine pet bird but you don't want her in your breeding flock. If more of these pop up in your flock you'll need to re-evaluate your breeding stock and widen the family tree so to speak.

 

[AusHen]

Silkies feathers are a result of a recessive gene, two silkies will always produce silkied chicks but breeding to a silkie cross (eg "satin") or other hard feathered breed will result in hard feathered chicks. If the older rooster isnt a silkie and has access to this flock than he is the father

 

[ANightPerson]

Not that could’ve gotten to the hens. Those silkies are in their own coop and run. I have this other old rooster that has his own hen and he can’t even fertilize her eggs.

One of them must've at some point, it's genetically (nearly) impossible for this chick to come from two Silkie parents. Bear in mind hens can sometimes be able to store a roo's sperm in her body for up to months at a time, so any contact she could've had with another rooster in the past couple months would've produced this chick. Does it have other silkie features? I see it has feathered feet, does it have the extra toes? The head floof looks a little lacking like it only has one copy of the gene.

What other roosters do you have? Like what breed. Or do you neighbors have any? As the chick grows you'll be more able to definitively tell who/what the father is.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Years ago my chicken buddies would have called this chick a 'throwback' meaning a normally recessive gene is expressing itself in this particular bird. This is a 'pet quality' Silkie. She'll make a perfectly fine pet bird but you don't want her in your breeding flock. If more of these pop up in your flock you'll need to re-evaluate your breeding stock and widen the family tree so to speak.

Silkie feathers are recessive so this isn't a case of one copy of a recessive gene expressing itself.

 

[theoldchick]

I wonder if somebody stuck a stray egg under the broody hen. I want to see what it grows up to be.