Late Bloomer? Something to Worry About?

[SmittenChicken]

As others have said, she might get a growth spurt or she might always be small. And sometimes, chicks just don't thrive for whatever reason and don't make it, and there's not much you can do. One thing you might be vigilant for is symptoms of coccidiosis - I believe slow growth is a pretty classic one. Are your chicks on medicated feed? have you noticed any bloody poop?

You might try pulling her out and giving her some egg yolk for some extra nutrition, the Poly-vi-sol/bird vitamins are a good idea too. When my chicks were in the brooder I had a BSL with pretty bad crookneck, so I'd mix up a cooked egg yolk with a few drops of parakeet vitamins and some vit E/selenium (for her neck). I found it easiest just to separate an egg and throw the yolk in the microwave for 15 seconds, then mix in the vitamins. I like putting the vitamins in egg yolk, 1) to change the flavor so they don't become egg-eaters (though have heard feeding them cooked eggs isn't a problem) and 2) so that it wasn't going to waste when the birds fouled up their water multiple times per day.

 

[hokankai]

Tried the scrambled egg, how the heck do you get them to eat it?! Haha I was trying not to make a huge mess in their litter but they would either avoid my hand with the food in it or all of the big chicks would take a tiny chunk and fling it somewhere. They were shaking their heads and wiping their beaks like they didn't like it...

 

[BackToMyRoots]

How are they doing with the treats? When I first gave mine scrambled eggs, two of them would get it all over their beaks and give themsleves the sneezes. Everyone recovered just fine. Just like yours, they also ran all over and lost chunks in the bedding, but I never noticed dried-up eggs in the newspaper or pine shavings when cleaning up. how's your littlest On a different note, how's your littlest one?

Edited for clarity and brevity.

 

[gritsar]

Every "smaller than the rest" chick I have had has turned out to be....a cockle-doodle-do. The exception being my turken cockerel. He's twice the size of the other turken chicks.

 

[crawfordmama]

I had this exact same situation with my Peanut (named so because of size), right down to not liking being handled. Peanut turned out to be a roo! I guess it's true: girls mature faster than boys!