Chicks seem to mature faster if raised by hen? Also color question

[HungarianHippo]

So we had that one unplanned chick hatched here on June 1st, and she (I’m being optimistic :lol: ) is doing great. Mama hen (wasn’t her egg, but…) has taken great care of her and our roo (Monster) is looking after her too. Puts food down in front of the chick, and clucks to her if she strays too far. I swear, the chick follows Monster around nearly as much as she is with the hen. The other hens have not bothered her at all. For the first 7-10 days, she stayed under mama’s wing for the most part, but once she started coming out, she was accepted right away as part of the flock.

I can’t get over how much faster she seems to be maturing, vs when we raise a whole batch of chicks without any hens with them. By week 3, this chick was already getting herself up on the top roost in the coop. Granted, she makes some intermediate stops–there’s a shelf about 2ft off the ground, and from there she gets another 2ft up to the first level roosts, and from there flys up about 3 ft to the top bar. But still, it’s pretty brave.

Any chicken color genetics geeks here? I was really curious what her adult feathers will look like. Monster was hatched here and is a cross betw Buff Cochin hen and a Welbar roo. Below is a pic of the Welbar (Monster’s sire), and a pic of this chick’s parents (Monster and a golden campine hen) and the chick (last pic). Given his parentage, not sure where Monster’s jet black coloring came from, but seems clear at this point this chick will look just like Monster. Same upright carriage, leg feathers, and starting to see black-green plumage on her flight feathers. Not sure about that white throat, probably that disappears once she molts?

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[Simkie]

Chicks seem to develop to their environment for sure. Raised in a brooder, there’s just not much for them to do you know? It’s all pretty boring. Not sure that it’s being raised by momma…think it probably has more to do with being in the world, so to speak. I’ve got some chicks about that age outside right now, and they definitely explore and flap around and would probably roost like that. It’s SO much easier to give them space when not hatched in very early spring.

Here’s a great resource on chicken genetics:

https://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/gms7-plumage-pigments/

Chickens, like horses, are two base colors, black and red, with a whole lot of dilution and pattern genes over laid to create the massive variety. Black is dominant to red.