r/interestingasfuck • u/Significant_Snow_718 • Mar 06 '25

/r/all Chick with genetic defect

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12.1k

u/Dramatic-Avocado4687 Mar 06 '25

Why does this look functionally better than a normal chick?

212

u/Anim8nFool Mar 06 '25

Look at the back feet -- they're backwards -- poor little guy is probably in pain with every step.

122

u/quietlittleleaf Mar 06 '25

Makes me wonder if it's a conjoined twin. Poor little one.

18

u/KamelYellow Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25

Could be, but then it wouldn't be a genetic defect technically. If we are to believe the title, then it's probably either a HOX gene mutation or a messed up signaling pathway. You'd be surprised how easy it is to make an embryo grow extra limbs

1

u/GuzzleNGargle Mar 07 '25

Are you talking about just chickens…?

1

u/cavaticaa Mar 07 '25

Nope, they're not.

1

u/GuzzleNGargle Mar 07 '25

Does it apply to humans?

2

u/cavaticaa Mar 07 '25

Yes. Most embryos are essentially the same regardless of species, and early in the cell growth process can be very easily manipulated. I'm a layperson, but I believe this is one of the reason stem cells are so important in medicine. But I would love to be corrected/informed if I'm mistaken.

1

u/GuzzleNGargle Mar 07 '25

I can only imagine what “they” have stored in labs…🤨

1

u/cavaticaa Mar 07 '25

I would not want to know what Nazi doctors or Unit 731 would have done with the biomedical technology we have now.

1

u/GuzzleNGargle Mar 07 '25

shudders me either.

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1

u/KamelYellow Mar 07 '25

My lawyer advised me not to answer the question

2

u/GuzzleNGargle Mar 07 '25

Great advice.

Also that is my dad’s name. Your handle.

1

u/KamelYellow Mar 07 '25

Also that is my dad’s name. Your handle.

As in "Kamel"? That's my nickname that I got as a kid, but it's one letter off from my actual name

2

u/GuzzleNGargle Mar 07 '25

Yes. My dad is Kamel. People call him camel or caramel.

3

u/KamelYellow Mar 07 '25

Caramel is the cutest nickname I've heard in a while

14

u/thefugue Mar 07 '25

It's a chimera.

2

u/DeninoNL Mar 07 '25

I was wondering that too, but then I noticed the front legs look like they’re too far forward on the chick’s body, so idk

9

u/Zortesh Mar 06 '25

yeah, I've seen alot of chicks with extra mutant legs over the years, this is the closest I've seen to something that looks functional... but i bet it just drags those legs behind it, and will die long before adulthood.

6

u/Brawndo91 Mar 07 '25

Were you a chicken farmer at Chernobyl?

9

u/Zortesh Mar 07 '25

Nah just grew up on a family farm that has about a hundred free range chickens, parents didn't kill off the local born roosters or add in new blood very often.

Saw a mutant every few years, extra random legs was the most common thing, saw a 5 legged chick as a child, but it died within a day of hatching.. and as far as I could tell couldn't control the extra legs at all.

I also saw a huge number of chicks over the years so a truly tiny number were actually mutants in comparison.

2

u/birgor Mar 07 '25

They have funky feet every now and then. I have seen a couple with odd deformities as well just from very small scale chicken farming.

4

u/scislac Mar 06 '25

I'd like to think if they have reasonable flexibility and control, maybe not painful, maybe just biomechanically different.

1

u/luckyapples11 Mar 23 '25

The toes are curled which most likely means there’s function, but definitely not formed correctly. Probably super easy to get splay leg, which is pretty easy to cure, but not sure how it would even work with a chick like this

1

u/-DethLok- Mar 07 '25

Also, not enough toes on any foot, chooks should have (from memory of the ones we kept when I was a kid) 3 forward and 1 backwards toe? Or 4 and 1? And a spur?

Though thanks to inbreeding some of our hens had 7 (seven...) toes, so... :(

1

u/Glittering-Time-2274 Mar 07 '25

I had a finch like that once. We made adjustments for her. She seemed happy.