Noticeable size difference

[MandaRae]

So I have 2 Speckled Sussex Chicks both are supposed to be Female & they are supposed to be the same age but there is a very noticeable size difference. The larger one is even slightly bigger than the rest of all the other chicks but then the smaller is also noticeably the smallest
Has anyone seen this? They will be 2 weeks old Tuesday.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Sometimes those smaller ones have something internally wrong and they will fail to thrive and will eventually pass. Sometimes they are just runts. Time will tell.

 

[Stacyoung13]

Sometimes you just get a big baby. I hatched some Silkies, (3weeks old now), but from hatch, Chubs, a Black Silkie, has been twice the size of her other 8 hatch mates.

 

[GC-Raptor]

I have a runt in my recent flock of 7 Barred Rocks. They will be 8 months old tomorrow.
She is at the bottom of the pecking order and has gained a lot the past 6 weeks, but is about a pound less than the second smallest.
I have named her Precious. She is healthy and lays 5/6 eggs a week. They are small eggs. The other 6 are medium to large size.
She needs help getting on the roosts at night. But I lockup the coops after sunset daily, so not an inconvenience.
This is her at 4 1/2 months. . She is very friendly and comes to me to put her on the roost. GC

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

I had a little CCL chick that hatched last year. She made it out of the egg okay, but I had to help her eat and drink for the first couple of days, even though she was broody raised. She was noticably smaller than the rest and was named Midget. She is still smaller by a bit, but perfectly healthy.

I hope your little chick is just a tiny one. I have also had a small chick that I helped hatch from the incubator. She had some internal issue I couldn’t figure it and had to euthanized.

A few weeks will answer your questions for sure...

 

[MandaRae]

I hope the little one is okay she is super sweet. She does like to stay under the heater more often but eats and drink great so far!

I was more concerned about the HUGE one now I'm concerned for my little one!!

 

[5GodsDown]

I'm in the same situation right now. I picked up some chicks this weekend and when I moved them to their brooder, two were huddled together and one was all alone, exhausted lying on her belly. We were afraid she was the weaker one and was already being picked on, but lo and behold, after a good night's rest she turned out to be bigger and more active.

Now one of the twins (only the big one has a name, because we can't tell the other two apart yet) is catching up to our big one. So we also have a smaller chick that needs some more heat and sleep than the rest, but otherwise she is eating and drinking fine, jumping on top of the heat plate with the others.

As with a lot of things here I think we have nothing to worry about as long as they are eating and drinking normally

 

[WhoDatChick]

I got four new chicks this Spring and they were all the same age but all four different sizes.. sm, med, lg, xlg.. the xlg EE would pick on the tiny SS.. so I rehomed the EE.. and the SS has been fine since.. they are seven weeks now.. that’s Goosie in front with her sisters.. LB...Lilly... and CM...Mak.... They are still sm, med, lg..

 

[CannedMonster]

I ordered a bunch of chicks from Meyer hatchery and two of my three partridge Rocks were half the size of one of them.
One of the runts died at 2 weeks; something internal was wrong.
The other two went on to laying but the bigger one died at 8 months. We think she was egg bound or something.
Lucy, the surviving runt, turned out to be the healthiest so far and lays nice sized eggs regularly.
She’s not that much smaller now either.

 

[Silkiesarefluffydinos]

Hopefully you do just have a small runt! We hatched out a small Barred rock/Americana/Maran mix a few weeks ago(she'said about 6 weeks right now) she had splayed leg and balance issues so we had to isolate her from the already nearly a week old EEs we had gotten fom tsc. She needed help accessing food and water for the first 2-3 days. Once she was strong enough we put her with the EE's and she's doing great!