Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

The plot thickens. Definitely silver.

Good Luck to the little guy!

if he doesn't make it why not just pop it into the freezer (whole) and i'll take a look when i drop off your chickens later this summer, and then you don't have to.....
it's definitely silver! and if it does make it would likely turn into a very striking silver ER patterned adult!
i'll keep my fingers crossed that it does make it....

He looks a shiny silver to me. What were his parents?

His mother is a black Easter egger that's half Orpington, and his father is very much a mutt. He's recessive white with some black, blue and red paint splashes, hints of barring in hackles and tail. He comes from a red sexlink cross on his mother's side and a white EE on his father's side.
Baby doing good so far. I've seen him peck at food, but I'm not sure he's actually eating it... I will check later, and if he is, I'll keep him out for a bit tomorrow to see if he poops.

Hope it survives, looks a little like the lavender chicks.

I just had 2 possibly 3 (1 looks to be blue) of these silver down chicks hatch today, a first in all the years I've been hatching, from a mixed lot of eggs, two chicks are fully silver another is just it's body head looks to be that of a gold laced wyandotte, if it is a genetic trait.

Is it weird that I'm glad mine aren't the only ones? Also glad that I'm not the only one who can't seem to catch the shiny, brilliant silver on camera. I took several pictures of the new little guy today, but all just make him look like a normal blue chick.Seeing him in person, rather than on a picture file, he is NOT blue like other blues I have hatched. Update: He's eating healthily. Don't know yet if he's pooping, but is not yet showing any signs of distress. BUT, he's definitely different from the other chicks. He SOUNDS different...his cry, when he's cold or tired or hungry, has a different sound than the other chicks. I would chalk this up to his age, his lateness in hatching, or other things, but it is a familiar sound from when I had silvers hatch before. It's unique and indescribable, but NOT like a sickly chick, if that makes any sense. Sickies have a strident urgency to their sounds that is different yet again. BUT...back to the blue thing, he is definitely bluer than other silvers I have had...looking more like a normal blue unless you know what you're looking at. He is a DIFFERENT colour, and shiny silver in certain light, like a coin, silver. It gives me hope that he's just different enough from the pure, solid, shiny silvers, that he might just make it.
SO, lavender (self blue)...I'm now wondering if this gene is at play here. It wouldn't be the first time I've had an odd colour or pattern gene suddenly pop up and then perpetuate itself. After all, I had NO mottled birds for years and years, until suddenly, one hatch, I had one obviously mottled bird, no inbreeding, no mottled in history, and not one copy of mottling but pretty clearly two. BAM. Now I have lots of birds with one or two copies as a result of that freak cockerel, but was never able to produce it again from the original mating...so could lavender have popped up in the same way? I've seen lavender chicks, and they are called lavender for a reason--the blue looks almost shiny pinkish in certain areas and in certain lights--and I'm fairly confident this isn't lavender/self blue, but after hearing about how troublesome lavender is (lots of early deaths right into breeding age) I'm wondering if I could be wrong, and this IS lavender, maybe with modifiers or some sort of lethal gene thing going on.
I don't know if it's relevant, but he has either a cushion comb, or a squashed rose comb, I'm not sure which. Both pop up in my EEs from time to time, about 1 in a hundred chicks or so. I don't remember if other silvers I've had have had anything other than pea or single, unfortunately, so I'm making a note of it here
@WLLady , if he dies (I still fully expect that to happen) it's ok to freeze him??!? Won't his tiny innards turn to mush as he thaws?

Killerbunny wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 14, 2017 10:24 am

Wow! I had come across a lot of white cats in the UK that are deaf.

Oh--white cats or dogs with blue eyes are almost always deaf. Sometimes only in one ear, but usually stone deaf.

@windwalkingwolf just put him into the freezer straight away. this sounds really morbid but i don't let it thaw all the way before looking...just enough to be workable. The tissue is pretty tough and things stay pretty intact.

spontaneous mutations can happen. i never had any frizzled birds....ever. EVER. and viola 2 years ago, a frizzled marans....out of the blue. there are places in the genes that are prone to mutation, they're inherently unstable, and can mutate quite easily. It's just if the combo of that mutation plus the others in the animal are actually prone to live that determines what will happen. Some of these unstable areas contain pieces that switch in and out, and can affect more than one gene, so depending on the other gene that has been affected the outcome could be either a new more stable mutation or death.....or weakness, or failure to thrive....etc.

and horses with blue eyes commonly end up blind in the blue side.....