One 8 wk old 1/2 the size of all the rest--is this normal?

[4myHennyPenny]

My girls are about 8 1/2 weeks old now and all are supposed to be standard hens. Granted, I know that some difference in size is to be expected because they are different breeds: 1 BO, 2 BR, 2 EE/Amer. One of the BR was the tiniest chick, she's now the largest of the bunch. But I'm really wondering about one of my EE/Amer. She's just finally grown to be about the size of a pigeon. And yet, she's probably 1/2 the size of all the others, including the other EE/Amer. As a baby chick, she was the same size as the others; this major size discrepancy probably began around 5 weeks or so.

Is this normal? Healthwise, she seems to be fine. Always a very active forager, eats really well, never appeared ill. She does have some bare spots on the shafts of her longer feathers (these have been there since the feathers came in); always just assumed it was normal or that the other girls were picking on her a bit (haven't witnessed this, but I think she's toward the bottom in the pecking order).

 

[siz8003]

I would say she is a bantie my EE is about 9 weeks and the bigest one i own (mostly banties)

 

[4myHennyPenny]

But if she were a bantie, wouldn't she have been a smaller baby chick? My sister just got bantie & standard chicks-- there was a huge size discrepancy between the two. This EE didn't really fall behind the others in size until she was about 5 weeks. Now she's almost 9 weeks old and the size of a pigeon. That would mean she'd be a pretty big bantie in the end, wouldn't it?

But have to admit that bantie is the first thing I thought of, too. The more I thought about it, I decided she couldn't be because of what I mentioned above. I do wonder whether the mom or dad was a bantie, though. Would that account for her being so much smaller now?

Or because EE's are "mutts", does their size wind up a major variable as well?

 

[siz8003]

I have no idea I think they are muts so it could b a little bantie