RIR baby not growing....

[Kellichick]

I have a RIR baby that I got at about 1 day old and is now about 4 weeks old. Unsure of the sex, we call it Jellybean. At first, Jellybean seemed to be growing right along with the rest. Then, after about the first week, it just stopped. It's otherwise healthy acting; eats and drinks and gets around fine. It started to feather out at one point and then stopped that also. I took it out of the side of the brooder that had the first group of chicks that I bought, because they were all outgrowing it. I put it in the other side with some I bought a couple of weeks later that were younger and closer in size to it. Now, those babies are outgrowing it.

The RIR baby in the back is the same age, 4 weeks, as my failure to thrive baby. These are 4 and 5 week old babies.

You can see the NH Red baby that is about 2 weeks old in front of Jellybean. The NH Red is outgrowning it, also. Jellybean still hasn't developed tail feathers.

I'm at the point where I'm already looking for a bird cage, because I don't think Jellybean will ever grow up and be outside like a regular chicken. Does anyone have any idea what's going on here?
Any advice?

 

[Gardengirl 2011]

I have no idea but I hope someone can answer this for you. Im curious to know what would cause that too.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

May be a dwarf gene. Do a search, there are a few thread related to that topic on here somewhere.

 

[hennyannie]

I have a chick that got sick four days after I got it. They are about two weeks this thurs. It is just way behind now. The others including this ones brother/sister have all kinds of feathers. It only has some wing feathers. It however went 48 or more hours not eating on its own. This chick looks like th one week old bunch. Could Jellybean have went off his/her feed for a while.

 

[Kellichick]

Jellybean has always had it's head in the feeder as much, if not more, than everyone else. It's just a real mystery to me......

 

[hennyannie]

He or she looks very healthy as far as I could see. Perhaps just a late bloomer? Best of luck!

 

[kelseygirl707]

I had this happen with a BLRW I had a while back, I was told it may be a roo, as sometimes Roo's feather out slower. But I had to sell them before I knew what they were, so not sure if that was true?

 

[chickened]

If you overcrowd the feeder some will get less food than other and by the time you usually figure it out the less aggressive ones lag behind. Try putting in another feeder. Try rotating all the smaller ones to the same pen and sort them by size if you can.

 

[Kellichick]

I will try to get some better pictures of Jellybean and the others tomorrow so that everyone can get a better look.....

 

[mother o' chicks72]

I read somewhere that occasionally a chick will stop growing for a while and will then get a growth spurt and catch back up with the rest.