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 selection for desired characteristics created re ...

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 s ...

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 landsc ...

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, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

, 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 * Brabanter * Kraienkopp * * Crèvecœur Polish Silver Lace

* Dutch Crested or "Polish" * Houdan *

Kosova Long-crowing The Kosovo Longcrower or Kosovo Long Crowing Rooster is a breed of chicken originating in Kosovo. It developed as a landrace in the area of the Drenica in Kosovo, and thus in the Albanian language it is commonly called ''Rooster of Drenica''. Or ...

* * Padovana * * Polverara * * 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