Crested chickens

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Hood chickens are a special type of domesticated chickens , which are characterized by a hood-spherical or growth of Kalottengefieders. Crested chickens are difficult to differentiate from chickens with only slightly protruding head plumage, the crested chickens.

Historical illustration of the Dutchman d'Hondecoeter

History and occurrence

Excavations in England show the presence of crested hens as early as the time of the Roman Empire. The first crested chickens were depicted in Dutch paintings in the 17th century. Since then, crested chickens have been among the best-known ornamental chickens in Western Europe. After the emergence of pedigree poultry breeding in the 19th century, several crested chicken breeds became known. Primitive crested chickens are found in the Netherlands , north-west France , Italy , Poland , Germany , Russia, and the western Balkans . Completely independent of these breeds, crested chickens also occur in unselected populations in Africa.

genetics

The formation of the hood is caused by the mutation Crest (Cr) . This inheritance is incompletely autosomal dominant. This means that both pure-breeding animals and split-breeding animals show the hood, but more pronounced with the pure-breeding animals. The mutation is on the coupling group E22C19W28.

Skull shape of a hood chicken (B) and a Bankivahuhns (A)

Hood knob

The spherical hood of the true crested chickens, such as B. the Dutch hooded chicken , is caused by a protrusion of the skull, the "hood pommel" or "protuberance" . Neurobiological research has shown that this malformation leads to a change in the anatomy of the brain which, however, has no functional relevance.

Crested hens and crested chickens

Dutch crested chicken

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wang et al .: The Crest Phenotype in Chicken Is Associated with Ectopic Expression of HOXC8 in Cranial Skin, PLoS ONE7 (4): e34012, 2012 doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0034012
  2. ↑ Frahm et al. Rehkämper: Allometric comparison of the brain and brain structures in the white crested polish chicken with uncrested domestic chicken breeds, Brain Behavior and Evolution, 1998, issue 52, pp. 292-207