Meet dum-dum chicken/pic added eyes open

[conny63malies]

This is dum-dum chicken .She or he is my weird little special needs chicks. S/he is almost three weeks old on this pic weighing in at maybe 50gram.

url=https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/7736_dum-dum_chicken.jpg]

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See the weird head thingy?

Dum-dum and another banty of the same age and breed

here s/he is with the eyes open looking a little more alert .

What do you think is wrong with my little dum-dum. He was born on day21 extremly weak, with this weird head thingy going on. He/she has bad coordination and that lump on his head feels soft. There is barely any comb going on. He is also way behind in feathering, just got his wing feathers, no tail feathers at all. I deceided to keep him because he eats and drinks. I left it up to mother nature to judge over live or death.
Also are those two partridge or gold laced cochins?

 

[Jubaby]

So ugly, it's cute. And I'm laughing at the name! I have no idea about the head bump - that's weird!

 

[ebonykawai]

Does it open its eyes? It just looks deformed. Sorry, I would have culled.

 

[conny63malies]

sorry bad pics. He /she does open the eyes like any other chicken. It just manged to close the eyes because it got them at a bad time. I wanted my husband to cull him the day the it hatched but he said he didnt know how and i didnt want to. So i kept it one more night. The next day it looked better and after 2-3 days it was up and walking around. It is still the tiniest of them all and the dumbest, but s/he manages to survive among the the other who are 5-6 times his size. If i should see that there are other issues like seizures,deafness or blindness i will consider culling. But for now we just wait and see. If picking on more than usual occurs i might get him/her a own area along with some polish since they have linited view.

 

[Cetawin]

I agree with you...if the chick is happy, eating and being a chick...why cull it? Just see how it goes...and if it needs to be culled later, then worry about it.

Good luck with the baby...I hope it does fine.

 

[ebonykawai]

Looks better in that pic.

Good luck with it!

 

[silkiechicken]

My guess is that it has a skull deformity... and the squishy thing on it's head is it's brain. I had a chick with a similar lump except there was no skin over it and so it's brain was sticking out. If it eats and drinks fine, you can let it live. Just don't let anyone peck it's head and be prepared to cull if something does happen. And just don't use them as a breeder.

 

[conny63malies]

silkie i figured it is a case of microcephalus with a malformed bone structure. Or it is a very mild case of anencephaly. Which means when the neural tube formed the head end doesnt close proberly, if it would have happend on the other end of the tube it would be spina bifida. You seem to agree with my husband , who also thouhgt that it was brain. Oh and one more thing about dum-dum chicken, it is not able to perch. I guess if it boils down to i have enough room in the basement. I kinda hope it stays tiny and we can beat the tiniest chicken record