one little chick just not growing...strange walk too

[bangor777]

Hi guys,
I have 6 chicks from ideal. three of them are standard cochins. The Buff cochin is very big and almost fully feathered. The white cochin is much smaller and only has feathers on her wings. The little barred cochin is smallest of all. These girls were all hatched on 2/25. The barred cochin is the size of my one seabright bantam.

the other thing is she spends most of her time laying down, walks seldomly, when she does walk she has a wider stance and a waddle to her walk (this has developed over the last week or two). She eats and drinks fine, poop is normal, doesn't cry or peep excessively. Seems happy. But there is something definitely wrong. No respiratory issues, although she breathes more quickly than the other chicks.

Anyone with experience like this? It's like she is just failing to thrive. I don't want to cull her, especially since she seems to not be suffering at all. Do you think vitamins might help? I love her but I'm afraid she's not going to make it to adulthood.

thanks for listening and thanks in advance for any advice!
Lori

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

Cocci maybe?

 

[bangor777]

hmm, shouldn't be, no bloody poop, brooded indoors, medicated feed, Doesn't appear ill, just slow and tires easily. thanks for the thought though.

 

[artsyrobin]

let me ask a vet friend of mine- my experience is with wild bird rescues, so maybe there is something that can help- is it possible she is just slower to mature?

 

[warmfuzzies]

Are you SURE she's not a bantam? That would be funny...

But, seriously, my chick with spraddle legs diddnt grow nearly as fast as the others, she is still much smaller even though I have taken her hobbles off and she is walking well.

I dont know if you thought about spraddle legs or not, but mine was just like yours sounds, with a wide stance and everything.

 

[klf73]

failure to thrive?

 

[chookchick]

I had a chick like that, she was only 4 days behind the others, but it seemed like she didn't grow for a week! She was sleeping a lot, and seemed very unsteady on her feet, not walking right. I noticed a few nights ago that she was getting basically run over by the others, so I made her a little hardware cloth "cage" within the brooder, partway under the lamp. I put food and water in measuring cups, and started giving her poly-vi-sol (I diluted it by half) a drop three times a day. For two days she did nothing but sleep and eat and poop. This morning, she was begging to get out of her cage and join the others! I was nervous about her, but she's been doing great today, even flying around a bit (she's 2 weeks old now). I think the respite helped her a lot.

 

[fowlgirl]

Chillin, What are Hobbles!? I had 2 broilers,one with severe sprawl,other with severe pigeon toe,neither of them could walk.I raised them with my other 40 broilers just taking extra care of them,I tried all kinds of thing to train the legs to grow right,what are hobbles?

 

[Bock_Bock]

can chickens have asthma (sp?) i mean with the deeper breathing and the slower or no movement it just might be hard for her to breath, also you say she is eating fine but maybe she tries to eat so it looks like she is but she nots and she is not gettign the nutrients to grow, have you tried vitamin water for her or that other grow gel?

 

[bangor777]

thank you all for the replies! I thought of spraddle leg, but with the other symptoms accompanying the wide stance I think it may be more of a failure to thrive type of situation. I should probably try some baby vitamins, does anyone know the dose on them?

The bright spot is that she seems quite content. There is definitely something going on. She is an odd little bird. I considered that ideal may have made a mistake and sent me a bantam barred cochin (That would be fine!) It's just odd!