Chicken with single wattle?!

[shandiane78]

I adopted (rescued) three chickens yesterday. Their pen was so small, they'd pecked each other half naked. So they look terrible of course.

One of them has a single wattle, more like you'd see on a young turkey hen. I've never seen this on a chicken. Any thoughts? Everything else looks like maybe she's an EE, but what's up with the wattle?!

*added pics*

 

[ve]

This is not wattle.She dos not have wattles.Many bearded birds do not have them.This is the skin where beard grows.Seems other girls pecked the feathers.My hens do the same with Faverolles roo I have

 

[shandiane78]

Oooooh! So does this mean my bearded birds have one of these too? It's just hidden by the beard?

 

[Firearia]

Yup!

 

[shandiane78]

Thanks Gabby! That explains it. I was starting to nickname her Churkey....

 

[HBuehler]

Agreed but to answer the one wattle..we had a hen that somehow as a small chick cut hers off-think she stuck her head through some of the wiring and snagged it..she lived a very productive life being called One Wattle and we never had a hard time being able to tell her from all the others

With some good care and a de-bugging her beard will come back.We bought several Ameraucana's from a rather well named breeder(no one on BYC) this Summer and our roo came like that..all came with a few hundred thousand mites.I first thought he had them plucked out then figured he dug it out on his own.

 

[dsqard]

Dang I really thought you might be 2/3 of the way to a turducken!

ETA - BTW good for you in rescuing them! Poor things look like they could use a whole bunch of TLC.

 

[NC29mom]

Yeah, they look pretty bad, poor things. Not only are their feathers missing, but they look like they didn't have a lot to eat. I am glad you rescued them. Love them and show them there are really good chicken owners out there. The first one is my favorite, so beautiful!! (especially in the 2nd picture)

 

[shandiane78]

Thanks! I'm trying to give them lots of treats when my other hens are already roosting. (So they can actually get some, lol.) Scrambled eggs, yogurt, etc.

I don't understand why they were being cared for so badly...The people were just clueless. I got them from the back yard of a great big house in a wealthy neighborhood! The amount of space they had was about the size of a closet (the long skinny type of closet). They did have plenty of feed (organic even) but I didn't see any grit, so they probably weren't digesting it well, plus she would fill them up on bread scraps and scratch, which is so nutritionally deficient. In addition, one of them had been setting on infertile eggs for four weeks! Poor thing. The lady seemed to blame the chickens for the bad behavior, and that's why it wasn't working out. SHEESH.

Do you think their feathers will grow back before it gets cold? I guess what I mean is, do they just grow back, or do they need to go into a molt to make it happen? I would try to induce a molt if needed. If they don't grow some feathers, they will be in trouble this winter I think...Fortunately, I haven't seen them picking at each other much at all since they got here.

 

[silkiechicken]

They will probably moult this fall on their own. With space and time, plucked feathers will grow back, provided that they have not gotten the habit of eating new pin feathers before they have a chance to grow out. Even if they are that "naked" by the time winter comes, as long as they go inside to sleep, our mild winters won't be an issue for them.