Crossbeak

[Beth Curran]

Michelle, I have an unrelated male you can have if we can figure out logistics. I have a friend with a grandbaby in Greensboro, if I can catch her when she goes up.

Tell your husband to "man up."   They're chickens, not children.   Life is terminal.   And looking back, short.  Choose to spend your time and other resources wisely.

This made me laugh out loud, especially "life is terminal!" If it makes him feel any better, I've tried to grow out a couple and they usually end up dying anyway, and you can provide a gentler death than nature will.

[Stan Alder]

  This was posted on a FB forum:

Sigrid Van Dort has a section on crossed beak in the book "Genetics of the Chicken Extremes". There are two types of cross beaks, those that occur at hatch and those that occur weeks after hatch. The latter is the inheritable trait, however it is stated that this is from a recessive gene, but it is not complete. Because on testing, no one was able to produce pure breeding crossed beak birds, even after being heavily inbred. The conclusion was if the rest of the bird is good, do not hesitate to use it to breed because the chance of getting more are small. Now the ones that occur at hatch, that can be caused by a short high incubator temperature. The author did not state how high is high.

[Mike Gilbert]

I don't agree with Ms Van Dort that cross beaked birds should be used for breeding.   If it is genetic, why would you want to perpetuate that in a line?  I still think it is two recessives working together to produce the crossbeak, and the one does not necessarily have to be homozygous.   That would explain why they could not produce a line that produce all crossed beaks.

[John W Blehm]

Cross beaks that occur at hatch are very rare in my experience, but with my last hatch the other day I did have a buff bantam with a cross beak.  I don't believe it had anything to do with the incubator, in this case, due to the many hundreds of chicks that hatched, without cross beaks, under the same conditions.  That is not to say that it is never caused by incubation problems.

[Tailfeathers]

I'd have to agree with Mike but for one exception and this is if I had NO other choice.  This one seems to be a no-brainer to me.  Can't see one good reason to even have crossbeak genetics being perpetuated.  I suppose if I had a flock that had been closed for several decades and I lost all my roosters except for a crossbeak, then I'd probably use him because I'd see that as better than bringing in who knows what by going outside.

[John W Blehm]

I'd have to agree with Mike but for one exception and this is if I had NO other choice.  This one seems to be a no-brainer to me.  Can't see one good reason to even have crossbeak genetics being perpetuated.  I suppose if I had a flock that had been closed for several decades and I lost all my roosters except for a crossbeak, then I'd probably use him because I'd see that as better than bringing in who knows what by going outside.

I've never bred from one, yet they still appear from time to time in some varieties after many years and even decades.  I'm not saying a recessive gene isn't the problem, but I still lean toward a congenital disorder/birth defect.

[Stan Alder]

I don't understand how it could be genetic and not be able to produce a line of them when inbreeding them ...  I think I'll continue to cull..lots I don't understand about genetics!!

[Mike Gilbert]

Stan, as I explained, my theory is it that would take two or more genes working in concert to produce the crossed beak.  One could be homozygous (pure), but the other(s) would have to be heterozygous (impure) to get those kind of results.    If it were required that all the genes be pure, it would be a simple matter to produce a line that bred true for it.    But if there was impurity involved as well as one gene that was pure (inherited from both parents), you could easily explain why they could not produce the true breeding line.   Does the report say how many birds were  produced in the effort?   I just wonder how extensive the research actually was.   Van Doort knows a lot, but she is not really a scientist. 

[Stan Alder]

I have no idea Mike..I just reposted that from another site because I thought maybe it would help in this post...I have not seen the study myself...

[Lee G]

Out of 150 chicks hatched this year, I've had two crossbeaks so far. One developed around 2 wks old and was culled, and the other was discovered during an egg topsy right after hatch. That chick was unturned in the egg and likely would not have been able to turn or pip due to the deformity. I thought it was interesting, as I had never seen an unhatched one before.

I have the book the study was taken from, and would be more than happy to type out the whole article later tonight though there is no mention of numbers of birds used or anything like that. The studies were done by Landauer (1938 & 1956) and Hutt (1932) if that helps...

[Tailfeathers]

Lee, I'll save ya the trouble if this is it... http://www.genetics.org/content/26/4/426.full.pdf

I haven't read it yet but I was thinking it might be time for some college kid whose still got nothing but time on his hands to do another in depth study since genetic technology has come so far these days.

[Lee G]

Thanks Royce. I'm not the fastest typer, so much appreciated. 

Ya, I'm thinking the same thing. Genetic knowledge has really come aways since then. And yet, isn't it amazing how many old time breeders seemed to instinctually know some of these things, even if they didn't always understand why or how. Since becoming a chicken farmer, I've come to the conclusion breeding birds is both an art and a science, with a whole lotta dice rolling in between!  lol

[Beth Curran]

Stan, thanks for sharing that, & Royce, for posting the link. While I don't agree with Ms. Van Dort that crossed beak birds should be used for breeding (except under exceptional circumstances like Royce said), I definitely want to read this. When I don't have a wild giggling child ricocheting off the walls...

I'm not saying a recessive gene isn't the problem, but I still lean toward a congenital disorder/birth defect.

I lean that way, too - because of the randomness of it, something just went arwy in the chick's development. But then, what Michelle got in back to back hatches sounds like something genetic. And if these are the birds I think they are, the hen & cock are unrelated. 

[Suki]

Mike G wrote...

If that is correct, and you wanted to eliminate the problem altogether, you would not use any bird that threw crossed beaks

On a similar note, on Facebook this same thing came up, and I was told, that beaks are easier to fix than wattles or combs.  Frankly I thought it the other way.

[Mike Gilbert]

The problem is not with eliminating from SOME of the offspring, but in eliminating it from an entire line of birds for good.   I'm not sure anyone has accomplished that; it may have been done, but I haven't heard about it in the last 40 plus years of breeding.   The wheaten bantams are about the best success story I know of, but I'm pretty sure it still lurks in the genetics of individual birds.