chick not growing much

Tamara119

Songster
9 Years
Jul 14, 2012
188
54
166
Bariloche, Patagonia
I have 4 week old chicks, 2 of which have hardly grown and their feathers have only come in a few millimetres. Seriously! Hardly any feather growth at all. These ones were shipped, and I think all are on the small side, but almost no growth at all seems unusual. I'm including photos of one of them. They eat and poop and run around and compete with the other chicks for their share, they just don't seem to grow! How can something that eats and poops so much not grow? I've put vitamins in the water, and in addition to their dry and moistened food they get treats of scrambled egg, angel hair pasta, lettuce, dandelion petals and plenty of bugs. They are outside, but they have a closed in coop space and a bedding area with a heat lamp. I could understand such slow growth if they weren't thriving and were sickly, but they are super active and healthy (as far as I can tell). Has anyone else seen such slow growth?

Here is the chick at 1 week:




Here is the same chick at 4 weeks:




Here is the chick beside one of the others. I guess it's not much smaller, but the one on the left is one of the smallest and least-feathered of the ones that have been growing:





Hopefully one day they'll magically start to grow!
 
my cockerel that got eaten (Chip) looked just like yours. their breed is Serama. it is the smallest breed in the world, and Chippie had the same problem. it is just because different breeds have different maturity ages. do not be worried, duckling.

~Hopefully Helpful (Collete)
hu.gif
 
Thanks for your encouragement! I wish they were Seramas, but they're not. They are Araucanas, but not like the breed in the US. I'm Canadian, and I live in northern Patagonia, the region that was once known as Araucania, no less! There's gov't funding with some breeders here to support the Araucana as a heritage chicken. Although we get rumpless and tufted, neither is very common. These are chicks from normal-sized chickens!
 
Some chick have a slower maturity rate than others, and as long as they are healthy you should have nothing to worry about. Even if there is little bits of growth, thats better than nothing. Just give it some time.:)
 
I had one chick in my flock in March that was WAY smaller than the rest - so much so that I wondered if I'd managed to get a bantam. I don't remember if she wasn't feathering out at the same rate. She was either an Ameraucana or a Wyandotte. Now, at 8 months, I can't tell the difference between her and the rest of the flock (although my Ameraucanas are the smaller hens). Hopefully it's the same for your little ones!
 
Thanks everyone for your reassurances. That's what I needed. They are healthy and active, but I also have a hen with week-old chicks and they are already way more feathered and will soon be bigger. The comparison was making me worry.
 

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