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Three legged chicken shocks farm workers


KING WILLIAMSTOWN, South Africa
By Baliswa Ntlahla

Workers at an Eastern Cape farm were shocked to discover one of the chicks they had bought from a local business has three legs.

Secretary of the Phiwokuhle Farmer's Co-op in Zwelitsha outside King Williamstown, Sweetness Maqase, said the chick was part of a large consignment of chicks they bought from nearby Umtiza Farmer's Corporation.

"When we bought the chicks we didn't notice anything strange about the chick until a few days later when we saw that it was walking funny. That's when we discovered it had three legs," said Maqase on Friday (SUBS: September 20).

She said when they discovered the chick, they immediately separated it from the other chicks to protect it.
"Even though we put the chick into isolation, it still jumps out the box and joins the others. There is nothing abnormal about its behaviour," says Maqase.

Phiwokuhle buys chicks, keeps them for six weeks and then sells the grown-up chickens to the community.
Umtiza supervisor Ntombi Njobe was shocked to hear that they had sold a three-legged chick. She said she's never seen a three-legged chicken before.

Fort Hare University zoology and entomology honours student Banele Dosi said the mutation is very rare, and normally only occurs in inbred chickens.

He said the mutation most likely occurred while the chick was developing inside its mother.

"A female chicken produces a number of eggs. The third leg could have been caused by the failure of the splitting of the embryo," Dosi said on Tuesday.

He said that anyone who finds animals with mutations should immediately inform local universities and research facilities. - WNA