no feathers along belly of chicks

[lsutigers1809]

hello i have about 20 chicks bout 3 weeks old most all of them don't have feathers along their breast bone i was wondering if anyone may know what's going on with that

 

[Dogchickenboy]

I have the same problem, I thought it was them getting feathers. But I dont know.

 

[chicken gal]

Did it start happening now or did you get them like that. Where did you get the chicks?

 

[Dogchickenboy]

Well i dont know about lsutigers1809 but I got mine from TSC and it just started happening

 

[lsutigers1809]

Wasn't like that when i got them but been this way for bout 2 weeks now

 

[lsutigers1809]

And i got mine from ts as well

 

[stefan333]

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.

 

[BantyChickenLuv]

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I've heard that them living in dirty conditions causes this.

 

[lsutigers1809]

I change it everyday so it can't be dirty least i wouldn't think