abnormalities in chicks

[chocbantamorps]

I have a question about abnormality problems in chicks.

Last fall I bought 6 two-week old bantam orpington chicks (of various colors) from a breeder on the East coast. Two of the six chicks were extreme runts and died within two months. They never grew larger than a two week old size chick. Nor did they ever got any pin feathers other than on their wings. Both chicks never looked sick but they never grew. The photo below shows chicks that are six weeks old including one of the extreme runts.


Early this year, I bought a dozen chocolate bantam orpington chicken eggs from a breeder in the mid-West. I hatched seven of them. Again we had two chicks with abnormalities. One of them has a cross bill. A second one had a large patch of downy feathers next to his rump until he was two months old -long past when the others lost all their down. The rest were healthy and thrived.

Is this abnormality rate of 33% normal for any chicken breed or just for bantam breeds or for orpingtons in general? Or did I just get a high number of problem chicks?

 

[silkiechicken]

I would say that is an abnormal percentage of chicks with "failure to thrive" and abnormalties. However, if these birds you are getting are all of show stock, it is possible that inbreeding to get the desired qualities have lead to this increased rate in issues as recessive issues can start to show. A breeder often only needs a few dozen real good birds, they can hatch hundreds to pick the best.

 

[chocbantamorps]

Both of the breeders I bought the chicks and eggs from are showing birds so your idea about recessive genes is probably correct. I did not realize that the bad genes could show up with only 6 birds at a time. I do not plan on breeding the hens and roosters i bought (they are only for eggs and composting in our garden) so there will not be any future genetic problems. Thanks for the info

 

[silkiechicken]

Genes are funny things. If you want to breed them, just get a different unrelated rooster for the girls One of a different breed ideally, as many very showy birds have a pretty narrow genetic diversity.