3 wk old chick with no feathers...

[TumbleweedChick]

I have a 3 wk old chick (I think it is a bantam EE, hard to tell because it is "chipmunk" coloring) anyway, it does not have ANY feathers, still covered in down. The other chicks that are the same age all have a lot of feathers, a couple are almost completely feathered. Should I be worried about this little peep???

 

[CoyoteMagic]

what are you feeding your chicks?

 

[TumbleweedChick]

Medicated start & grow. Everyone else seems to be growing but "chicklet" (my 10-yr-old named this chick)

 

[CoyoteMagic]

Not sure what is going on. At this stage it should really be entering the "Alien" stage. (part feather part fluff) Dunno if it's a bantam thing or not as this is my first time having bantams. But then again, my Sebrights are 4 weeks old and their wings are fully feathered. The rest of them isn't yet but the wings are.

 

[tammyd57]

Did you get your chicks from a feed store or someplace similar? If you did, they may not all be the same age. Some could be from an earlier shipment, some from a later one.
Otherwise I can't think why there would be so much difference. I do know some breeds feather a little faster than others, but not a lot faster.

 

[ArizonaNessa]

I am not sure about your situation but I did have a light brahma roo once that didn't have ANYTHING except for chick fuzz til it was 5 months old. It grew and acted just like all the other birds but it was naked and looked really weird. Like a giant baby huey! The feathers finally did come in but super slow. I named him HotWing cause well you could see his hotwings lol. I had a family come and begged me for him. I didn't want to rehome or sell him because he had an issue but they insisted. This is where it gets weird. They had a bald thing going on. The man was bald, they owned a hairless cat, a hairless chihuahua, a couple of some sort of naked mice and they demanded HotWing. They gave him a delightful home in their bald family and sent me updates and HotWing finally filled out completely and is a beautiful, healthy light brahma roo. Now while I had him I did some research and found that some males of certain breeds feather out super slow. It's not very common but I saw it so it's real. I gave him extra protein and everything and nothing worked. I just had to wait. I do hope that your little one jumps on the "I'm a bird and need feathers" bandwagon soon.

Edit: there is a photo of hotwing that the bald family sent me in my facebook photos. Not good but it's a pic. The album is labeled "hotwing" It's the website that is linked to my byc

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:

Yeah, that's probably the weirdest thing I've heard in a while! LMAO!

 

[Carpe DiHen]

Quote:
I have a two week old light brahma chick that is WAY behind my other 5 chicks.
The chicks are from MPC and were all sexed, but I know there is a 10% chance she is a he.... "she" is all chick fuzz while everyone else has wings.

How long did it take for you to know you had a roo?

PS- no balding in the family

 

[TumbleweedChick]

Thanks everyone for your input. This is my first time having chickens (did A LOT of research though, lol) and just thought it was strange. I was afraid that "it" might be a roo since it's taking so long to get feathers. I already have two that I know for sure are roos and don't need another! I'll just wait and see what happens


By the way...TOO funny about the "bald" thing

 

[Happy Chooks]

Is the chick growing? Or is it the same size as when you got it? Slow feathering is normal, some breeds feather in really slowly. But if it's not growing, there's something else going on.