Crested chickens are a group of ornamental

chicken breeds There are hundreds of chicken breeds in existence. Domesticated for thousands of years, distinguishable breeds of chicken have been present since the combined factors of geographical isolation and Selective breeding, selection for desired characte ...

characterised by a tuft or crest of upward-pointing feathers on the head.

History and distribution

A skull excavated in England suggests that crested chickens were present there in Roman times. Early depictions of these birds are found in the ''Ornithologiae tomus alter'' of

Ulisse Aldrovandi Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carl Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history st ...

of 1600, and in the work of Dutch

animalier An animalier (, ) is an artist, mainly from the 19th century, who specializes in, or is known for, skill in the realistic portrayal of animals. "Animal painter" is the more general term for earlier artists. Although the work may be in any genre ...

painters such as

Melchior d'Hondecoeter Melchior d'Hondecoeter (; 1636 – 3 April 1695), Dutch animalier painter, was born in Utrecht and died in Amsterdam. After the start of his career, he painted virtually exclusively bird subjects, usually exotic or game, in park-like landscap ...

in the later seventeenth century. After the exhibition poultry breeding developed in Europe and North-America in the nineteenth century, several old crested breeds became widely known. Original crested chickens originate from the Netherlands, France, Italy, Poland, Russia, and in the Western Balkans. Apart from these breeds, crested chicken are found in Africa and Iceland.

Genetics

The development of the feather crest is based on the mutation "Crest" (Cr). Its inheritance is incomplete autosomal dominant. This means, that

homozygous Zygosity (the noun, zygote, is from the Greek "yoked," from "yoke") () is the degree to which both copies of a chromosome or gene have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism. Mo ...

but also

heterozygous Zygosity (the noun, zygote, is from the Greek "yoked," from "yoke") () is the degree to which both copies of a chromosome or gene have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism. Mo ...

animals show a crest, which is however more pronounced in homozygotes. Darwin Domestic 134

Vaulted skull

The extreme upright stand of the head feathers of many breeds, like the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

, can be attributed to a skull malformation, which is known as cerebral hernia or vaulted skull. Neurobiological investigations showed that this malformation alters the brain anatomy without any functional relevance.

List of crested chicken breeds

* Annaberger Haubenstrupphuhn *

Appenzeller Spitzhauben The Appenzeller Spitzhauben is a Swiss breed of crested chicken originating in the historical Appenzell region of Switzerland. It is one of two chicken breeds from that area, the other being the Appenzeller Barthuhn; the only other Swiss breed ...

Brabanter The Brabanter is a Dutch breed of crested chicken originating in the historic region of Brabant which straddles Belgium and the Netherlands. It is an ancient breed and is shown in 17th-century paintings. A bantam Brabanter was created in a ...

* Kraienkopp * * Crèvecœur Polish Silver Lace

* Dutch Crested or "Polish" * Houdan * Kosova Long-crowing * * Padovana * *

Polverara Polverara is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Padua in the Italian region Veneto, located about southwest of Venice and about southeast of Padua. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,555 and an area of .All demographics ...

* * Sultan *

References

{{reflist, 45em, refs= Heiko D. Frahm, Gerd Rehkämper (1998)
Allometric Comparison of the Brain and Brain Structures in the White Crested Polish Chicken with Uncrested Domestic Chicken Breeds
''Brain, Behavior and Evolution''. 52 (6): 292–307. {{doi, 10.1159/000006574. {{subscription required. Don Brothwell (1979)
Roman evidence of a crested form of domestic fowl, as indicated by a skull showing associated cerebral hernia
''Journal of Archaeological Science'' 6 (3, September 1979): 291–293. {{subscription required. Yanqiang Wang, Yu Gao, Freyja Imsland, Xiaorong Gu, Chungang Feng, Ranran Liu, Chi Song, Michèle Tixier-Boichard, David Gourichon, Qingyuan Li, Kuanwei Chen, Huifang Li, Leif Andersson, Xiaoxiang Hu, Ning Li (2012).
The Crest Phenotype in Chicken Is Associated with Ectopic Expression of HOXC8 in Cranial Skin
''PLOS ONE''. 7 (4): e34012. {{doi, 10.1371/journal.pone.0034012. Chickens Poultry breeding