no feathers along belly of chicks

[stefan333]

5 Week Old Lavender Orpington 3 Week Old Easter Egger


3 Week Old Light Brahma 2 Week Old Silver Laced Wyandotte


If they look similar to this it's normal.

 

[lsutigers1809]

That's exactly it

 

[kennyboy]

my light brahmas belly looks like that but a little worse idk if its supossed to happen or not

 

[Snphillips]

I have 6 week old chicks that also don't have feathers on there belly side

 

[Naliez]

They look healthy. Sometimes their bodies outgrow their down faster than their feathers grow in. If there's no other symptoms, and they're eating, drinking and pooping, I'd say they're fine.

 

[Naliez]

Btw, that first pic looks like a little roo with those cute little pink waddles and comb.

 

[Western North Carolina]

I'm gonna assume it's normal, because several of my polish are like that. They are extremely healthy and have excellent housing. Just that "awkward" feather phase.

 

[geina]

I have four week old chick with no signs of feathers yet. It’s the funniest little chick I’ve ever seen. The others are looking normal but this one looks like a chicken you buy at the store only mini. Anyone ever had this issue or know why is could happen? It’s covered with the soft down feather stuff but not the first sign of a wing or butt feather.

 

[Audialogical]

One of my cockerels just grew so fast he’s totally bald on his stomach glad I found this post!

 

[Dd2]

It seems like this might have gotten posted twice, so I'll just cut and paste what I wrote on the other one here, too. Not sure about a lot of the answers you're getting, cause this is normal. If any of you guys got chickens who actually grow feathers on their breast bone please let me know, cause I have over 60 chickens and none of mine actually grow them on their breast bone.

Very normal. 3 week old chickens tend to look a little ragged while they're getting all there feathers in. I've found that Orps and Australorps look the most crazy. Also, here's a quote from Gail Damerow's book "Hatching and Brooding Your Own Chicks":

"Unlike a mammal's fur, feathers do not grow over the entire body surface of a chicken or other type of poultry. Instead, the feathers grow in small, symmetrical tracts and fan out to cover the body. The feather tracts are separated by featherless areas in which some down may grow, even in mature poultry."

There's more, but that pretty much gets the point across. Also she has a diagram on the page showing where the feather and featherless tracts are. One of the featherless tracts on a chicken is the breast bone. They'll start filling in a lot more as they age and their feathers fan out, but for right now they might look a bit funny.

Thank you , very helpful , I have 2 week old chicks and ducks and mine have seemed to go bald on the breastbone too, i swear they had feathers there before , the down anyway. I thought it was molting but was worried when I didn't see new fethers coming in. Another question , there feet are pretty bumpy and callousy on the bottom , not bumble foot but is this normal also