Missing feathers on chick's stomach, large lump below neck

[skylervm]

Hello everyone, I'm new here and this is my first post. We just got 3 Red Stars and 2 Easter Eggers this Monday and they all seem to be doing really well except for one.

One of the Red Stars has developed a small lump on the neck and seems to not have any feathers down the middle of its stomach. It looks like it may be picking at or scratching that part of it's body pretty often? That section of its body also seems to be wet pretty often and the feathers appear kind of wet and matted?

I've seen all the posts describing something similar that turn out to just be the crop. I guess that's what it could be, but I'm not sure... mostly because the rest of the chicken's stomach seems to be missing feathers as well.

Overall, it seems to be healthy. It eats, drinks, runs around with the others and plays. The only thing that adds to my concern is it sleeps and sits down a lot more than any of the other chicks. It doesn't have any trouble walking or running around, it just choses to sit down and sleep way more than the other chicks do.

Anyway, here are some pictures. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Excuse the poop stuck to the bare spot. We didn't see it at first and cleaned it up after the photo.

Thanks for your help and all the great information on the site already!

 

[lfoose]

Looks like a full crop-'tummy' full of food.

 

[skylervm]

That's what I was thinking... I'm going to remove the food and water tonight and see if it goes down.

I was just more concerned about the whole middle of the stomach missing feathers and looking wet / matted. Especially because none of the other chicks seem to have that problem.

 

[True Grit]

Hi I 'm new too so don't know much but I'm not sure about removing the food and water from such a young chick. It looks like she might have pasty butt from the pics so if you do a search on that you will find out what to do about that.
Good luck