concern on size of chick

[jen3991]

Hi. 3 weeks ago we hatched our 3rd baby chick. We noticed when she was born she was about a 3rd of the size of the previous 2 chicks were when they were born. We didn't think much off it at the time until 2day when my partners mother who has lots of chickens popped round to see our latest arrival and said how shocked she was at how small she still was. We hadn't really paid much attention to this but after she said this i looked back at pictures of our last hatchling and by this time they were a lot bigger. One of our older chicks (now 16 weeks old) has the same mum as our new chick so we compared pictures and there is a lot of difference.our new chick still looks almost the same size as when she was born. Someone told me that they read somewhere that males grow slower at thus age (no idea if that's true?) So it may be that she is a boy? We are hoping not as if she is we wont be keeping her once she grows up as i don't think the neighbours will appreciate the crowing lol. Any advice will be a great help. I'll try and get a couple of pictures uploaded to show the difference in size.

 

[Stiggy]

Are they all the same breed?/ parentage?
sometimes you get a runt one, even if the egg is still a good size. Sometimes they also have something wrong with them, they may grow slowly and live but be stunted or they may not and die young. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do unless she has something like coccidiosis/ sinus/other infection. Breed dependant some males grow slower, some males grow faster.

I had a blue silkie last year that never grew properly, at 8 weeks he still had baby feathering and was the size of a week old ( for easy purposes I will assume it was a boy) and we had to re-place him under another mother hen because he was so small and his siblings were so big. Slowly he got wing feathers but not much adult fluff, I tried to boost him up ( and the others) but he didn't grow and they got fat, I tried vitamins, minerals, high carb, high protein etc but nothing helped, he died at 15 weeks, at the size of a 3 week old with overly large wing feathers. we still don't know what was wrong, but it hasn't happened since. I would just keep an eye on it and try boosting his feed.

 

[jen3991]

Hi thankyou for your reply. Sorry I couldnt thankyou sooner but had problems with my internet. Unfortunately our chick died in the night she had grownba tiny bit more than when i originally questioned her size but was still tiny and very skinny and boney. We noticed yday that she didn't seem herself and found her this morning. Lots of tears (manly from me) in our house this morning. Thankyou so much for giving me your answer as I definitely feel this helped prepare us for the worse. As I said before this chick has the same biological mother as one of our 16 week old chicks and at around 6 weeks of age this chick all of a sudden began suffering from curled toes which I was advised can be a genetic problem among other things so it does seem slightly coincidental that both chicks have the same parentage and had problems. Again thankyou so much. Its such a shame we couldn't help her but while she was here she was loved : )

 

[Stiggy]

I'm sorry to hear about your chick, its such a shame when they don't make it, especially when they are pets and are loved. You are right, she may not have lived a long life but her short life was filled with love and compassion.