bald bottomed chicks - pics!

[Erica]

Greetings, fellow chick raisers... I've got a small question regarding some light sussex chicks I hatched at home from bought eggs.

I got about a 50% hatch, half in the incubator and half under a hen (both with the same net result). Of the 12 that hatched, 4 or 5 otherwise healthy chicks hatched with bald patches on their bottoms. Now they're 4 weeks old and still have no fluff or feather on their bottoms!

There's no feather picking and in any case there was nothing there in the first place to pick... I'm finding it quite strange.

Has anyone else had this happen? Do you think it's a genetic thing? Incidentally, these are show birds so I'm wondering if this is to do with heavy inbreeding?

Thank you in advance for any ideas...

 

[Erica]

A couple more shots for the curious

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[14 chickens & counting]

Quote:
Poor thing! Wish I had more experience to help.

 

[Gypsy07]

I don't know about the baldy bottoms but just looking at your pics I'd say that for their age, their feather development in general seems very slow. Are the ones with normal fluffy bums feathering out at the same rate? By four weeks my chicks usually have much more feathers than that...

 

[dsqard]

I agree with Gypsy07 here. I don't know what could be causing this but they really should be more feathered at a month. Could you contact the breeder and find out if this is typical of their birds? Maybe they just feather out really slow? Have you been feeding them high protien chick food? Just trying to think of reasons this could be happening. Hmmmm

 

[Gypsy07]

Also their fluff in general seems to be quite sparse. That bottom photo, you can clearly see the skin on the little one's chest through his fluff. I'm assuming that lump is his crop. There should be LOADS more fluff than that on him. As far as I know Light Sussex in general don't tend to feather out any slower than any other breeds. What dsqard says is probably the best idea. Contact the breeder and see what they say about it.

Could you post some pics of the normal ones for comparison please.

 

[Casey76]

I agree, for 4 weeks I would expect much more feathering...

This chick (hatchery sussex) was 4-5 weeks old

 

[Erica]

Thank you for your thoughts, everyone. I agree about the slow feathering and sparse fluff, but I don't think it's diet related, as 2 of the chicks have feathered almost fully. One of the fully feathered chicks has a bare bottom just like the others, so it seems the two are unconnected (sparse fluff and slow feathering).

Thanks again, I'm really grateful for the help. I'll take the advice and ask the breeder if he's seen anything like it before.

 

[debid]

It might be completely unrelated, BUT... I know that cockatiels develop bald spots on the top of their heads if you inbreed excessively. Perhaps this is a symptom of trouble in this provider's breeding program.

 

[Gypsy07]

Can you post photos of all of them? It would be interesting to be able to see them all...

Also would be interesting if you let us know what response you get from the breeder.

I wonder if they'll feather up eventually or if they'll always have cold bums?