Baby chick not growing

[kiplingchick]

I purchased peeps from my local tractor supply on July 27. This one is not growing or developing. All the others have tail feathers and wing feathers, and feathers on their chest. This little girl eats and drinks and poops and tries to keep her self in the middle of her much larger sisters. But she is often getting trampled and run over by them. Is it likely she will catch up in her growth and development?

 

[AllyTCat]

She’s probably just the runt. I would say monitor her eating and give her supplements and make sure the others aren’t bullying her.

 

[elphabafalls]

She’s probably just the runt. I would say monitor her eating and give her supplements and make sure the others aren’t bullying her.

X2
Just because they're in the same bin at Tractor Supply doesn't mean they were born the same day either. She may be younger and/or a runt. Are you able to get another chick that's closer to her size to keep her company? Also, do you know her breed? Is she a different breed than the others that are developing faster? We had some that were all born the same time, but one of them was a breed that developed much slower. While the others started looking like fully-developed mini chickens, the one looked more like a big fuzzy chick.

 

[Eddie33]

With it being almost 4 weeks old, I would think it would be a little more developed than your picture shows. Are you sure it’s eating? I ask this because I had a Wyandotte that was about like your chick in the picture development and age wise. I thought she was a failure to thrive chick. I had always seen her eating with the other chicks and she even seemed to eat longer than they did. Her poops looked normal and I don’t see any reason why she was behind the others. But she wasn’t growing much and peeped all the time. I finally brought her upstairs and put her on the dining room table on some towels and tried to get her to eat some hard boiled egg I had made her, which she didn’t even attempt to eat. I did get her to take a little Nutri-Drench from a dropper but not much. She was peeping a lot, like she had been doing since I got her. I assumed she was hungry, so I just poured some of her dry chick starter on the towel. She immediately started pecking at it and then I noticed something. She was picking it up and it was just falling out of her beak. I never noticed this because she was below me in the brooder eating and now was about eye level to me on the table. I watched her do this for about 5 minutes and I don’t think she got much if anything down. Her beak looked normal so I thought maybe she was having issues swallowing the food. So I took some and put it in a coffee grinder I had and made it into a powder. I gave her that and boy did she eat. She was actually getting it down because the powder I made was disappearing. I ground her up some more and she must have spent 20 minutes eating. Her crop was huge after she was done and I then decided to just grind all the chick starter until she was older. I I immediately noticed a big surge in her growth and her constant peeping stopped. Fast forward to today and she is 14 weeks old and my largest Gold Laced Wyandotte of the three I got. She now eats the unground starter fine, she was 8 weeks old before I was comfortable not grinding it smaller. This might not be the case for your chick, but I see so many people on here with the same problem and accept it’s just a failure to thrive situation and nothing can be done. In my case she just couldn’t or wouldn’t swallow the chick starter the way it came out of the bag. I would definitely check her crop to make sure she is getting food in there after eating and also make sure it’s emptying as well. You can also try Nutri-Drench to get some extra vitamins in her or boiled egg for extra protein if she will eat it. I hope everything works out and she catches up with the other chicks, just keep working with her and don’t give up on her yet.

 

[Sammi_0411]

Id either say shes a runt or not the same age if purchased somewhere id give her time xxx

 

[InterestingChickens]

Make sure she's eating and drinking. If you can watch them for a bit each day, that would be ideal (to make sure she's not being bullied).