10 week old columbian wyandotte not growing white feathers; genetic?

[cabot]

This chick was bought as a pullet from MPC. It is as big and healthy as his/her hatch mates, eats well and is not picked on and is very bright and active. Wherever white feathers should be is just grey down or bald skin. The black feathers are coming in fairly well. The other 8 chicks of various other breeds are fully feathered.

Is this just a slow maturing bird or do you think there is a genetic problem with the white feather growth....

This pick was 2 weeks ago at around 7-8 weeks of age

any thoughts?

 

[cowman910]

I think her white feathers are broken

I am also curious as to why this is happening.

Mike

 

[tigerkitten45]

I'm no expert but she looks like a silver laced wyandotte not a columbian. These are my SLW.

 

[Chris09]

Looks like a Silver Laced/ Columbian cross....

Chris

 

[RAREROO]

Do you have pics of it as a chick ? It looks like it has the grey down like the Col Wyan chicks, and they extra black is typical of hatchery birds and they may well be crossed with SLWs as I have seen severy hatchery birds that appear that they have been, but its not normal for a chick that old to not have any feathering on their back and chest like that. You can see some white coming in at the bottom of the leg feathers but that is about it, there must be some kind of defect.

 

[cabot]

here are some pics of a day old and 3-4 weeks old

I'm beginning to think it is some kind of genetic disfunction....

 

[RAREROO]

Yep, the chick pics look like a typical Columbian Wyandotte so I think there is some kind of disfunction too. I just saw a thread somewhere else with a what they said was a healthy active chick. but it was much smaller than the hatch mates and had the same kind of feathering problem as yours I guess. But I had had silkie mix chick that was kinda like this, she grew her head, neck, wing and leg feathers in fine and took forever to get the rest of her feathers, but she is feathered out now so maybe yours will be too soon.

 

[snowbird]

Some breeds of chicks feather up slower than others, wait another month and I believe your chick will feather up ok.



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[Reillycrew]

I'm curious to know an update about your CW...I purchased 2 from MPC. one is fully featherd and the other is having the exact same problem as yours.

 

[phasianidae]

It's a columbian. And it's genetic, it should get fully feathered out in time.