Which Came First? The Chicken or the Egg?

If it walks like a duck, it may not be a duck, say the residents of Buga, in southwestern Colombia. According to a recent article by the Associated Press, a chicken was born with the legs of a duck and the head of a rooster on a farm near Buga. It is also reported to cluck like a hen.

Poultry farmers are familiar with chickens and ducks. For many years, they have used hens to hatch both ducks and chickens, since both birds require a similar temperature to hatch, and approximately the same amount of time.

Farmers are aware that chickens are the only birds which have a comb, which is a piece of red flesh, more prominent on roosters than on hens, on the top of their heads. They also know that roosters crow and chickens cluck.

Jose Rengifo, the man on whose farm the chicken was born, has raised chickens for many years. Never before has he seen such an unusual chicken.

Normally, the foot of a chicken contains three separate toes, with a spur protruding from the rear of the foot. It is attached to a leg proportionate to the chicken's bulk. A duck, on the other hand, has a shorter leg than a chicken. Attached to the leg is a foot containing toes connected to each other by a thin expanse of flesh, which is referred to as a webfoot, an adaptation for swimming. The leg of the duck is placed further back on its body than that of a chicken, which makes the duck appear to walk in a clumsy manner.

According to Mr. Rengifo, he had purchased an egg in Monterrey, a township in the Valle del Cauca province, which he then brought back to his farm and placed in one of his chickens' nests. After a few days, the chicken-duck was born.

"Maybe there was a chicken which was allowed to get too close to a duck," Rengifo said. "I can imagine that is what happened because of the rare legs. Or maybe it was a duck that was a little bit too intrepid and the chicken/duck was the result of it."

Oscar Amaya, a local veterinarian, noticed that the chicken did not swim, even though it has a duck's legs. He thought that the chicken was very unusual.

Through the study of water birds, scientists discovered that a duck is able to swim due to the oil produced by a gland near its tail which coats and waterproofs its feathers. A duck will sink in the water if the oil is removed from its feathers. A chicken can not swim.

Mr. Amaya said there must have been "a genetic manifestation or some alteration that happened at the moment of the gestation in the egg. Genetically it is not possible that two organisms like that can give life to another one because the number of chromosomes is completely different and this makes them unable to reproduce" due to incompatibility.

According to scientists, the duck is related to the goose and the swan, while the chicken is related to Asian jungle fowl.

For now, Paco, the six-month-old chicken-duck does not have to worry about being served for dinner on the farm. The Rengifo family wants to keep Paco as the family pet, which seems, well, just ducky.