Chicks feather growth, or lack thereof.. *pic*

[Manda0227]

Hello all, I wasn't sure where to put this, as its not really an emergency disease or injury. I had a previous post in that section about a bantam chick that was really not doing well. He would just stand there. Not sit, lay down, just stand. Hang its head, and nod off. It ate very little, and drank barely enough. I gave him sugar water 3 times a day, by hand since I didn't want to give the others it as well, as they didn't need it. I fully expected to come home from work to find that we'd lost him. He's still with us, and he's doing pretty well. He's very active. Eats, drinks, and he's definitely not low man on the totem poll. He's in with chick's that are about a week younger. I don't know why I call it a he, I don't know what sex he is- or even breed for that matter although Im thinking he's probably a Sebright. Anywayss.. All the other chicks I got the same time as him are feathering out nicely. Even the ones that he's in with now have more feathering than he does. What little feathers he does have, they're just awful looking.. and it appears his tail feathers broke off a little bit. He's not getting pecked at, I just can't help but think that he was a failure to thrive case that survived with some issues. Which is fine with me, I'll figure something out to make him comfortable and happy for life.. I guess I'm just asking if this has ever happened to anyone before? Or seen anything with a chick that has really under-developed feathering. I can feel where the feathers are starting to come up, its just when they actually do- they look like.. well.. crap. Thanks for looking/reading!

Here's a picture. It was taken 5/13. He's almost 4 weeks old, and yes I'm sure!

 

[FireTigeris]

there's another case just like this, you might find it in a search- but someone else's baby was just as far behind- they did vitamin water and it tried to correct quickly as I recall.

 

[elmo]

Feathers are made of protein, so you could offer him extra protein...maybe some hardboiled egg yolk. It's hard to tell from that picture, but I wonder if he could be a frizzle?

 

[zazouse]

beautiful chick

I end up with one like that once in a while, this one is 7.2 weeks old in the photo, he started crowing before he was fully feathered.

One ugly chick

I had a MF chick that only had wing feathers at 6 weeks old, but it is no longer with us.bad kitty

 

[fastpat]

One of my 26 Partridge Rocks is somewhat like that, perhaps not quite that stunted, but about half the development of the others.