The chicken who never grew up ?

Hi

We have about 50 Japanese Bantams (with long legs) that are free range, they lay regularly, we get about 70% hatch rate and we eat the cockerels at about 5 months when they start bothering the hens.

Everything usually goes well with a new set of chicks, their mum looks after them, they grow up, we might lose one to a hawk or a snake every now and then but most of them make it.

On new years day, 2010 we had five chicks hatch, one of them was lost to a hawk after a few days but the other four started to grow up normally. At about eight weeks we notuiced that one of them wasn't growing as fast the others and now after four months she still hasn't grown any bigger than she was at eight weeks or so. Now her two brothers and one sister are easily twice as big as she is and she has been surpassed in size by chicks born in February. She is perfectly healthy, still hangs with her borthers and sister but cheeps like a chick and always sleeps under her brother. Her comb isn't changing color and her feathers are a bit fluffy.

Has anyone else experienced this with Japanese Bantams (or any other breed) ?
Does anyone have any idea if it might be genetic, disease related or a head injury type problem?

I've (hopefully) added a couple of photos showing 'Sadly' (my daughter names them all - how she remembers all their names is beyond me!) with her brother and a can of Coke for scale.



The second image is 'Sadly' with one brother on the flower pot, the other brother hiding behind a leaf and her sister to the right (not the young cockerel desperate to get in the photo though !!!)



Any information would be interesting

I am no help at all, but wanted to follow this thread and say.....that is so cute!

Strange. I am no help either. This wouldn't be a head injury, more likely genetic. She seems happy and would make a good pet.
Chickflick has a pullet like this, spent all winter with her head in a feed bowl eating. Finally grew up. Still small for her breed and lives in the bantum coop. Poor thing has bad beak and leg but has pretty much overcome her problems.

Sometimes for no discernible rhythm or reason a chick will hatch that never reasching its breed potential. My son had a black australorp hen that never got much over 25% of the size of her hatchmates. These small size birds are what were often used in the development of bantam size chickens

Not that I am saying this is what happened... but....

When I was younger, my cousin was playing with a toy her dad had just made her (a wooden batman symbol on a string) and she was twirling around in a circle.... Well her dad always got geese ever year to hatch and that year he had three!!!

Well she accidently let go of the string and it hit one of the geese in the head. The little guy was fine, acted a little stunned but continued to eat and drink and acted a little off balance, but after than, it never grew!

It lived many years with in the neighbors pond, and came back every year.

But I wanted to share that it could happen that way, and they do live normal lives!!!

Your little one is cute!!

Thanks for your replies.

I'm adding to this post because we've got another micro-chick, but this time it's head trauma for sure. When he was born he had a lump on his head and it's never gone away. It still oozes clear fluid from time to time when the lump gets too big but it doesn't seem to bother him. It does bother the other chickens though and they all peck at his lump so he has, against all I ever said about having chickens in the house, become a house chicken, my daughter is delighted but then she can't hear him cheeping at 4:30am !!!.

Here is a photo


Sadly, from the previous post, is doing fine and is beginning to get a bit of color around her face, perhaps she will reach sexual maturity after all. The eggs will be tiny though if she manages to have any.

Dwarfism gene at work. Along with it can come other abnormalities in varying degrees.

Quote:
I had this with a call duck. "Microduck" is a year old now and is only about half the size of his siblings but he is going strong. He was tiny and grew very slowly. When all of his sibling were grown and fully feathered out, he still looked like a 3 week old duckling. I gave him extra vitamins and nutrients all the time and constantly worried that he would not make it. But he is still with me and just a fiesty little booger. All of the folks here on BYC followed his growth with me and we all pretty much are in agreement that it is dwarfism. Good luck with yours.

These 3 are splash marans. They were from the same breeder, but he did mention one was a pullet egg. The other 2 were from older hens. This picture was at about 5 weeks old. Now, they are 5 months old, but I can't seem to get them together for a photo! lol The 2 normal sized pullets are laying now, while the smaller one isn't even close! She's the size of a bantam, the other 2 are standard size. She's a happy, healthy little girl. She's just not maturing at the same rate as her sisters.

Since you said your little one is happy and healthy, I'm not sure if this will help or not. I had a chick that wasn't growing. She was so weak she could barely move. She had mal-absorption syndrome and couldn't absorb nutrients well. I put vitamins in their water (Poult Pak) and she began growing right away and is now a big healthy hen. I now put vitamins in at least half of their water. Maybe this would give your little one a boost?