SOMERSET, Pennsylvania -- Henrietta the chicken was living inconspicuously among 36,000 other birds at Brendle Farms for 18 months -- until a foreman noticed she had four legs.
"It's as healthy as the rest," the farm's owner, Mark Brendle, told The Daily American.
Brendle's 13-year-old daughter, Ashley, named the chicken Henrietta after the discovery Thursday. The bird has two normal front legs and, behind those, two more feet. They are of a similar size to her front legs but don't function. The chicken drags her extra feet behind her at the farm in in Somerset, Pennsylvania.
In 30 years of farming, Brendle said, he's never before seen a chicken with four legs.
There's no definitive reason why such deformities happen, said Cliff Thompson, a retired professor of genetics at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. He said it could be an accident of development, akin to a sixth toe on a cat.
Brendle said he jokingly suggested to his family that it sell Henrietta in an Internet auction, but Ashley objected.
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