Mislabeled Bantam or v. small Faverolle

[ybmagpye]

Yes. Me again.

Seem to be rift with questions since day one of receiving my chickies. This is just idle curiousity (of the sort keeps me up nights).

Ok. I ordered 4 standard Faverolles hen chicks via mypetchicken, which I understand uses hatcheries. I thought that one of the chicks was going to die, as she was slow to learn to eat and such. She survived. But here's my question. The four birds were the same size as chicks when I got them. Then the one (Babette) had troubles, but after a week or so, she was fine, eating all right. But now weeks later, she remains, 1/2 the size of the other chicks. She's growing but she is noticably smaller.

So... is it possible for a standard bird to lose half her adult size due to weakness/illness as a chick? Or maybe I was given a bantam chick instead of the requested Standard size. That ever happen?

 

[Goose and Fig]

Her growth may be stunted due to illness. I had a weak BR that I thought I was going to lose, and seperated her until she recovered. She eventually ended up almost as big as the other girls. She was also the only one I kept of my BR as I became quite attached to her.

 

[Critter Crazed]

I think it's just that sometimes chicks grow at different paces than others. Sometimes you get a slow grower, sometimes fast ones. That's my guess.

Hopefully she grows to the size of her siblings!

 

[jossanne]

I got a bunch of barred rock males as packing peanuts from Ideal when I ordered bantam cochins a year ago. One little BR didn't grow for the longest time, and by 6 weeks old was smaller than the bantam cochins. The rest of the BR's were twice the size of this one. When we butchered the BR's at 18 weeks, I could no longer tell which one was my runt. Maybe yours will catch up like mine did.