2 of my 9 RIR's chicks are very strange

[Gamesta400]

Hi everyone, hope someone can help me. I have 9 Road Island Reds that are 10 weeks old and something is very strange with 2 of them. Wondering if I got a crossbreed or maybe some kind of disease.

1: For starters they have these tiny white little feathers in a band around their necks
2: Stunted growth, half the size of their siblings
3: Extremely skittish compared to their siblings

Can anyone help my understand why these 2 chicken are so different from the others? Will they be able to leg eggs ok being so small?

 

[sepaditty1]

Hmm...they almost look like a different breed. Not sure what, though. They sure are cute!

 

[CalamanEggs]

Maybe red sex link chicks?

 

[donrae]

The white I'm seeing in the pic just looks like chick down, not actual feathers. I'm thinking the birds are younger. How long have you had them? did you get all your birds at once? Was there a size difference from the start? Where did you get them from?

 

[Gamesta400]

Yes I got them same time as the rest and they were the same size then. They are 10 weeks old now and the same size the others were at 4-5 weeks :-(

Got the from a local company called chicks galore that I have used before last year with no problems. You have a point about the look of the feathers, but they have had them for weeks now though. They look like little pin feathers or something, not like regular feathers. And the seem to be sticking out and not towards the back like the rest. So strange.

 

[Gamesta400]

Got a close up picture today.

 

[CalamanEggs]

Donrae is right, looks like chick down. In the first pics they looked almost speckled white but now she looks like a RIR to me. As for size, hard to say? We had a RIR chick in our first batch who was always tiny and somewhat sickly. She is still half the size of her sisters but lays beautifully and is actually a great broody hen!

 

[chickiegrrl]

My RIR was the tiniest chick, she's still our smallest hen, but she's a consistent, every day layer. They look adorable and not sickly at all, they should be fine. It does look like down.

 

[Gamesta400]

Just wanted to update everyone. Both chickens have died. The first one was around the 1st of the month, and the last one was this morning :-( Both of them seemed very lethargic on their last day, and were just standing in a corner while I was feeding the rest of the flock. Next morning I would find them dead. I can only surmise that they had some kind of defect that prevented them from digesting food, as they never grew anymore from when I took those pictures.

 

[chickiegrrl]

Oh, I'm so sad! I'm sorry for your loss. Man, they didn't look sickly, they just looked little. It's too bad you can't find out what it was. HUGS!!!