Are female baby guineas extra small?

[nikiandalex]

We are new to raising birds and have 15 three week old guineas. One of them has hardly grown at all. The rest are of similar size (pic attached). Is it just a female or is there another issue? Also, they are frightened to death of us. Is this normal? We're planning to coop train them w/ our seven 12 week old chickens who come to us when called. We don't want to lose all the guineas as soon as we open the door for some range time, although they do have a constantly available rather large fenced in run. The thought is the guineas may be too frightened to leave the coop/run area, so hopefully just the chickens will make for the door. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

 

[JLeigh]

There isn't a difference in size between male and female keets. Your runt may just be a runt. I had one, and she grew up just fine and is now the same size as the others. I hate to say this, but it could also be something genetic or congenital that could be preventing your keet from growing properly. If it's growing at all, eating, drinking and running happily around the brooder, it's probably just a runt, but if it seems less than robust, there could be other problems you can't see. Keep an eye on it - make sure it's eating and drinking. It looks healthy enough (except for size) in the picture. Are there any other symptoms?

Others can tell you what you might feed it to give to help it out. I'm not very knowledgeable in that area - - yet. My turn will come unfortunately, I'm sure.

 

[nikiandalex]

Thank you - it's good to know that males and females all grow the same way. And more good to know that we don't have 14 males and only 1 poor female!

Yikes. Anyway, our lil' un' seems very happy and, except tiny, quite normal and doesn't seem to be being bullied by the others, so that's good. Except she can't quite fly yet and the rest are all on the the roosting branches. We'll keep an eye on her (or him) to make sure it's okay. TY for your response!