Baby silkie born with TUMOR on head? PIC'S

[k2chickens]

well im a bit sad tonight, i luckily had 2 silkies hatch "doubt the rest will..no pips" and the one huge egg i was really excited about has a deformity....a quite big one really.

poor guy, this to me is an obvious cull...but as of now i just don't have the heart to do it. I have a few options tho i think. The first would be to wait it out and see if it shrinks, the second...lace it and see if i can drain it some how..." i touched and squeezed it a bit and it does seem like a mass and not just liquid tho" and the third option would just be to sell the little guy to someone.

Maybe i can get some silky expert's in here but to me...i think it's just a large tumor.

 

[CrazyFowlFreak]

Do NOT mess with that! That is a brain under the skin! You have a vaulted skull Silkie. It should be just fine. It's quite normal to have vaulted skulls on Silkies.
http://www.hattricksilkies.net/articles_vaulted_skull.html

 

[silkiechicken]

That's normal. It is a vaulted skull and is a desired trait by many who breed for large crests. It won't be as freaky looking once it fluffs out and grows in.

 

[k2chickens]

you know, i was thinking that as well. But my idea of vaulted skulls was the skull was just very flat and wide and kinda looked like the top part of the shape of a heart. I had NO CLUE!!! this was what all the breeder's meant. As you can tell i have next to no knowledge about silkies...only about feet, cushions, top knot's, and to look for split wing as well. The last thing i had yet to learn was the in's and out's of what vaulted skulls should look like. Well now i feel just silly lol

Do you guy's think i hurt him by kind off squeezing that bulb on top oh his head? I was gentle, i wasn't like trying to pop it like a zit or anything, but now that i found out that's it's literally his BRAIN im kinda freaking out thinking i might of made him go retarded or something just because i didn't know jack about silkie skulls apparently?

 

[CrazyFowlFreak]

Quote:
You squeezed it? LMAO
Don't squeeze it.

He should be fine. Just keep an eye out for other chicks pecking at him and if they do, separate it from the others with a calm chick.

 

[silkieluver_07]

Aww its perfectly okay that you didnt know what a vaulted skull was!

I'm also sure you didnt make your precious baby retarded by squeezing its vault

 

[CrazyFowlFreak]

I didn't mean to sound rude in my last post. It's just something I would've done when I was new to chickens. For instance, when I was new, meaning I had my first batch of chickens, I gave away 7 Cochins that I *swore* were roosters. Turned out they were all hens. The people I gave them to were thrilled at my ignorance.

 

[k2chickens]

Quote:
lol thanks for making me feel better. And to think i was wanting to breed these guys! Well 2010 is a good round numbered year to start saying i was knowledgeably breeding silkies. I have a decent cock that is a good stock builder, with another smaller hen that is not all that great but has the potential to throw good chicks. All WBS, white's are the only silkies i want to focus on.

 

[Dust Bunny]

thats CRAZY!

 

[TinyBirds]

I just hatched 2 with vaulted skulls too (from show-winning stock), and I had never seen anything like it either!! My first thought was it must be deformed, and then I remembered reading something about "vaulted skull" and looked on-line to see photos. Since I never had show-quality silkies before, I figured maybe it was something to do with the difference in appearance from other silkies I'd had in the past. Also the eyes appear very large to me and wide-set. Very cute! I'm so glad our babies are okay after all! And I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one that had never seen vaulted skulls before.
My 2 babies are in with an older "teenage" silkie now, and she's taking very good care of them (under her wings). I LOVE silkies!

ETA: I know the original post here was from a month ago, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to bump it up and educate a few other people also about these vaulted skulls and how they look on a new baby. I thought I was "educated" about chickens after all the hatching I'd done (hundreds of babies), but I'd never seen this before!