List of Chicken Breed with Curly Feathers – Beauty or Beast? – BarnCoop

Shared with you today is the list of chicken breed with curly feathers.

But first, you should know that genetics cause curly or frizzled feathers to grow out and curl away from the body instead of growing smooth and flat following the body contour.

Frizzle is not a breed of chicken, it is a genetically programmed feather type.

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Chicken Breed with Curly Feathers

Chicken Breed with Curly Feathers

Frizzles are more commonly happen in the following breeds: Plymouth Rock, Cochin, Polish, Japanese, and Silkies (Silkies frizzles are known as Sizzles).

Amazing Facts to Know about Frizzles or Curly feather birds

Their feathers curl out and away from the skin instead of lying flat against it.

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They cannot fly and may find it hard to roost if the roosts are positioned too high above the floor.

When compared to smooth feathers, frizzled feathers provide less protection from the cold. This is because it is hard to trap warm air against their bodies with backwards-facing feathers.

Frizzled genes are dominant in nature. A smooth-feathered bird bred to a frizzled bird will lead to 25% chicks processing frizzled feathers.

Breeding a frizzled chicken to another frizzled bird is bad because there is an high chance that the mating may produce “curlies”, an undersirable over-frizzled bird with weak feathers, brittle and break with ease (think: chicken with a really bad perm).

“The Frizzle gene (F) is incompletely dominant, with exhibition quality Frizzles usually with one dose only of the Frizzle gene (F/f+).  But there is a frizzle modifying gene (mf) which is recessive.

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The mf gene when homozygous (two doses) is a strong modifier of the frizzle trait. Birds with one dose of the frizzle gene (F/f+) & two doses of the modifying gene (mf/mf) may appear predominantly smooth, & may be mistaken for non-frizzle (& not of exhibition quality).

Frizzle birds homozygous for both F & mf (F/F mf/mf) may be mistaken for heterozygous F/f+ (one dose of Frizzle gene) with no modifiers (Mf+/Mf+). It is stated in the Hutt book that this mf gene is occurs frequently in non-frizzled breeds.”Poultry Genetics

You can visit the Polish Breeders Club for an in-depth discussion of frizzled genetics.

Now, you know the various chicken breed with curly feathers. Feel free to share and comment below.

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