| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| spicycauldron |
cockerel with three wingsOne of our young cockerels, happy and healthy and strong but always a bit odd in a way I couldn't determine - I just knew - I've just discovered he's got three wings! He's eight weeks old and has a 'pet' home to go to, though of course I'm now aware other things, internal things, might be wrong with him and so he may not reach adulthood. That said, he shows no signs of being weak.I'm thinking he's a result of inbreeding (he came from a bought-in egg) though not necessarily - deformities can crop up in any animal I guess. Obviously nobody can or should breed from him, but I'm wondering if anyone else has come across chickens with extra limbs before, just out of curiosity? The extra wing is on his right side, tucked under the other and slightly smaller. It seems his 'shoulder blade' or whatever, where the wings come from, forks to allow for two wings to sprout off. He has a dodo-like shape and incredibly long legs. His wings and feet are big compared to the rest of him. He's a Copper Blue Marans. He'll obviously never fly but for now shows no signs of pain, distress or illness. He is already crowing after a fashion, despite being so young, although he sounds like Anne from Little Britain! All told, a strange mutant boy indeed... He's perfectly content and cleans and preens his three wings without any problems at all. He'd probably have been spotted before now in a commercial context and culled but I've no reason to do that, nor would I want to when he's happy AND has a home to go to. Just makes you wonder if it's nature throwing up evolutionary try-outs or drawing from something in the past evolutionary history of the chicken! |
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| lottie |
Compared to the craziness of a Welsh dragon with 4 legs and 2 wings he sounds normal---bet he lives a long and happy life 
p.s. wasn't their a missing link fossil found in China with more than 2 "feathered" limbs ---or did I dream that? |
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| spicycauldron |
Go to admit, if he was suffering I'd think very differently but right now I think it's kind of cool. We'll just see how he goes! 
Brings to mind the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons. I'd just love to know if we've got an incredible rarity or if chooks with extra limbs happen a lot. |
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| spicycauldron |
Well now. It's a condition called polymelia, Wikipedia article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymelia Apparently it is extremely rare and there's an example given of a four-legged chicken in the USA living a happy life, born in 2005. Our cockerel's extra wing is not deformed, though. It's just a bit smaller than the one it's tucked away under. |
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| dpack |
rare and valuable judging by the documentary i saw about such critters
every species starts out as a "freak"but 3 vestigial wings seems a evolutionary dead end |
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| alison |
There is documentation about a 4 legged chicken in the Ilfracombe museum. The chicken lived a long life, then the farm gave the skeleton to the museum, as a curio. | ||||||||
| sally_in_wales |
what an amazing thing.
Might be worth sounding out whether your nearest biology collection (probably in a big museum) might like him when he eventually shuffles off his mortal perch. Hopefully it won't be til he's had a long and happy life, but for example, my museum has a small collection of albino birds, and there may be others with examples of natural mutations like this one that might one day be glad of an addition. |
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| Tavascarow |
Whatever you do don't tell Colonel Sanders!
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| spicycauldron |
Yeah, I did wonder about the likes of Monsanto wanting to find out how to make multi-winged GM chickens!
I gave this cockerel a temporary name 'cause I knew he had a home to go to, and he was called Mulder (X-Files) because I had this sense he was kind of spooky - before discovering the third wing! I'll admit I'm hoping he never develops a full-throated cockadoodle as I'd like to keep him. Neighbours can cope with his current Anne from Little Britain noises, which are about the same pitch and level as a hen boasting about laying an egg. I doubt I can keep him though. Real shame, as he's also got a weirdly pacifist personality. He simply refuses to engage other chicks in combat. He never picks on others and when he's picked on just stands there and lets it happen. Very strange all round. I've done more research and he's so bloomin' rare it's absolutely astounding that I've got him in my first-ever set of hatchlings. It was bizarre enough describing him as a 'special' chicken given they're not known for being clever - he's definitely what you might call in a human mentally handicapped. Just hard to explain why, but you'd know if you saw him and how he behaves. But as I said, for all that, he's happy and in no pain and no difficulties doing the things a chook wants to do. So. A mentally handicapped three-winged and pacifist cockerel. Of course he might become unmanageable once puberty hits big time. We shall see. |
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| spicycauldron |
I had not considered his possible monetary value because it doesn't matter to me - he does - but I am concerned to keep him under the media radar primarily because I don't want someone turning up in the night trying to nick off with him. Of course you're right - he's so ultra-ultra-rare he's worth a fortune I bet, though I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at how much and wouldn't sell him to become a freak show exhibit. But when you think of the silly prices Chocolate Orpingtons go for... Sheesh... |
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| Woodburner |
Try putting a video on youtube, bet it gets millions of hits. 
Reminds me of the 'aftermath' of Hiroshima, but I doubt that he is in any more discomfort than someone with an extra digit.
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| Gervase |
But don't title it 'bizarre cock' or anything like that - you might get the wrong kind of hits! 
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| colour it green |
i saw a 4 legged chicken once, on a farm belonging to friends of my parents.
the spare legs just dragged behind the hen though... |
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| Kinnopio |
I think you might be thinking of Microraptor, not really a missing link as such, but a small feathered dinosaur that is believed to have glided rather than flew using four feathered limbs. Both it's legs and arms were feathered. |
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| bring me sunshine |
Well that balances things out ... until she was eaten by the fox, we had a one-winged hen (called One Wing)
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| spicycauldron |
One of the few references I could find was to one of those hatched 2005 in Pennsylvania in the US, same description with non-functional back legs, and still alive and healthy today, apparently. Our three-winged wonder can, we've now discovered, fly after a fashion - just a short distance and he's none too good at steering. Kind of like a supermarket trolley, he veers off to the right (which is the side of the extra wing). |
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| spicycauldron |
Yeah, he's happy. Also discovered he has a very short neck and by now, at just over 11 weeks old, he does a kind of craaaing noise at 11am every morning, scaring himself sh**less when he does so because he doesn't know it's him making the noise! He's now very tame as well, unlike your average Marans. I doubt, with the neck, he'll crow normally because they all crane their necks up high when they do don't they? We shall see... We'll keep him if he doesn't crow well, but he has a great home with a lovely lady on stand by if need be. |
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| spicycauldron |
Yeah, on Twitter we've had some great mock headlines like, 'Monster Cock Stands Proud' 'Mutant Cock is Cause for Wonder' and all sorts of stuff like that....
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| Woodburner |
Ok make that billions of hits  
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| dpack |
might be nice to let the biologists have a look /dna sample in a kind and harmless way ,very unusual | ||||||||
| bring me sunshine |
How are the Downsizer stats looking?!
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| spicycauldron |
Ahem. Turns out, I discovered yesterday, he has FOUR wings. Not three. The one on the other side is just the same - half the width, same length, tucked under the fully-formed wing. No idea how I missed it or I dunno... Maybe it's appeared since the first discovery... Who knows?
Like a big butterfly with feathers that crows! He started crowing at three weeks old and is now just 13 weeks old and half the size of his brother, both Copper Blue Marans. He remains healthy, extraordinarily friendly and sweet, and very simple-minded (even by poultry standards). |
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| Woodburner |
That actually surprises me less than your original count! Nature/evolution is very keen on symmetry, even when it makes mistakes.
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| vanessa |
Ahem, where's the PHOTO of your beauty? | ||||||||
| spicycauldron |
I've got lots of photos of him, not recent ones though - he's much less ugly and googly-eyed and gangly now than he was! He sits on my shoulder like some kind of bird of prey and puts on quite a show for visitors, striding around the garden hooting and carrying on.
Here's one of him without me trying to display an extra wing: 
and here's one with the two right wings on show: 
His feathers are no longer all over the place and his body shape has lost that 'dumpy' look. His eyes are very piercing, and should apparently have been entirely black like his brother, that turned out perfectly normal. He can fly, after a fashion, but his wings beat in such a way as to remind you of dragonflies - you can make out the two wings on each side as kind of constant blur, really very odd to see. And he seems to find it hard to steer, and crashes very quickly to the ground. He remains healthy, happy, and extraordinarily tame - and has yet to defend himself against any other bird when attacked. Thankfully he's never been badly beaten up, I wouldn't stand by and let that happen. |
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| spicycauldron |
True. Still shocked me all over again though! I don't know how I missed it. Maybe I was reeling at just finding one extra... But I checked his brother, and his brother's wings are as they should be. Both extra winglets, as I call them, being half the width but the same length as the normal wings, come down from the 'shoulder' or whatever you'd call it in chickens. It's like there's this bony area there that has forked into two, on both sides. |
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| spicycauldron |
I no longer think he's dim, either - by chicken standards. I think his behaviour and his character are very... unusual, and frankly in a good way. |