Short and missing down on newborn chick

[SycamoreHorsesFarm]

I hatched this little EE chick out last week and she hardly has any down! It’s short like velvet. Her feathers are growing in like normal and she is active and healthy otherwise. I’ve found some studies on “clubbed down” in meat birds.

Has anyone seen this and will she grow normal down? Her new shoulder feathers look particularly silly sticking straight out.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Time will tell how she feathers in, she'll go through a couple of juvenile molts.
If she's eating/drinking/active, then enjoy her and see how it goes.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

I hatched this little EE chick out last week and she hardly has any down! It’s short like velvet. Her feathers are growing in like normal and she is active and healthy otherwise. I’ve found some studies on “clubbed down” in meat birds.

If it's alright, I'll cross-post my chick's photos and information here too, so we can keep a thread going with info on Clubbed Down Syndrome - as I truly believe that's what your chick, and my chick, and @gimmie birdies chick, all have. Might be others out there. There sure as heck isn't much info at all on the internet! Dang, that was a deep search to find anything!

My little chick had a difficult, late hatch on Sunday. The down on her back is very short, stiff and wiry, almost like a brillo pad or beard stubble. The rest of her down is normal. At first I thought it was dried membrane or thick albumen, but I gave her a sponge bath and ... nothing. So I dabbed some coconut oil on her back, and it's softer, but just weird. This chick is very tiny - as of this morning, she weighs 37 grams. The breed is simply a barnyard mix, maybe Australorp, BPR, RIR, or EE combinations.

I first tried to clean the area on her back, thinking it was dried membrane or thick albumen, but nothing came off. So I dabbed some coconut oil on it to soften anything there might be on it, and it helped - but still nothing.

Today I gave her a bath with 101-deg-F water and some Dawn dish soap (didn't have any baby shampoo), and a soft-bristled toothbrush. Gently dabbed her dry with a paper towel, then plopped her into an incubator to finish drying and fluff up. She's doing FINE.
After bath:

Here's a close-up of her back, after bath and fully dry. (Dang I love this new phone!):

(Edited to change male pronouns to female, since I've just learned that this condition likely affects only female chicks, according to the study below in next post.)

 

[BarnyardChaos]

This is probably the most informative article I could find on the condition, though it's from 1962. According to this study, the defective down is due to a genetic combination and mostly affects black chicks with the E gene, from BPR and RIR parents, and was found only in female chicks - though it's been studied some in Cornish chicks, too:

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/...egion=us-east-1&originCreation=20230307211112

Has anyone else found this in their chicks, or have more information on it? @Eggcessive @casportpony @NatJ @azygous @nicalandia anyone?

 

[SycamoreHorsesFarm]

This is probably the most informative article I could find on the condition, though it's from 1962. According to this study, the defective down is due to a genetic combination and mostly affects black chicks with the E gene, from BPR and RIR parents, and was found only in female chicks - though it's been studied some in Cornish chicks, too:

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/...egion=us-east-1&originCreation=20230307211112

Has anyone else found this in their chicks, or have more information on it? @Eggcessive @casportpony @NatJ @azygous @nicalandia anyone?

That’s a great article. I wonder if riboflavin deficiency explains the low hatch rate. I had 40% quitters at the 7-14 day mark (9/22). 7 hatched and 6 never started.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

That’s a great article. I wonder if riboflavin deficiency explains the low hatch rate. I had 40% quitters at the 7-14 day mark (9/22). 7 hatched and 6 never started.

Wow - that's so disappointing! Do you have any other ideas what might have happened? I had about 77% hatch rate, with several dying between 10-14 days. Only one quit early, and one died during hatch.

That article, and a couple of others I read ...
(both 1965, I could find nothing more recent, but I'm not an expert internet sleuth)
... said their studies proved ...
(I'm summarizing here)
... that riboflavin deficiency alone had no statistical significance in causing clubbed down in chicks who carried the "non-barred extended black down color (E)" gene.
(I dare you to say that ^^^ 10 times, fast. LOL)

Ah.... but they ONLY tested BPR hens mated with roosters of RIR, SCBL, and DC breeds. I couldn't find studies related to other breeds of chickens, or just those without the extended black (E) gene. But it is mentioned that the "residual genotypes" of other breeds may modify the clubbed down effect of the extended black E gene.
In other words,
Clubbed down appears most often in non-barred black female chicks who carry that E gene.

So what does it all mean? Beats me. My brain is so scrambled after reading those and trying to accurately summarize the findings. Time for a well-deserved cup of cocoa, and a visit to my tiny little black chick with the weird hairstyle.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I hatched this little EE chick out last week and she hardly has any down! It’s short like velvet.

That’s a great article. I wonder if riboflavin deficiency explains the low hatch rate. I had 40% quitters at the 7-14 day mark (9/22). 7 hatched and 6 never started.

My favorite "technical" hatching resource has *poosible* causes of embryonic failure according to what day they quit and other specific hatch anamolies seen starting aroung page 51-ish in the following link..

https://www.hubbardbreeders.com/media/incubation_guideen__053407700_1525_26062017.pdf

 

[BarnyardChaos]

My favorite "technical" hatching resource has *poosible* causes of embryonic failure according to what day they quit and other specific hatch anamolies seen starting aroung page 51-ish in the following link..

https://www.hubbardbreeders.com/media/incubation_guideen__053407700_1525_26062017.pdf

And there it is, in the Hubbard Incubation Guide:
"Short fluff, dry, rough:
• Nutritional deficiencies, particularly riboflavin
• Mycotoxins or other inhibiting factors that provoke nutritional deficiencies
• High temperature during the first 14 days of incubation"

Thank you for responding! I meant to tag you as well, but forgot your user name!

 

[Poodlemum]

One of my WTB chicks last year had similar issues, also a black chick. It ended up feathering in fairy normally, but I could still tell the difference between her and her black sister

 

[SycamoreHorsesFarm]

Wow - that's so disappointing! Do you have any other ideas what might have happened? I had about 77% hatch rate, with several dying between 10-14 days. Only one quit early, and one died during hatch.

This batch of eggs was from a local hobby keeper who was selling eggs for eating and happened to have a rooster. So the age of hens and nutritional profile is definitely questionable.

One of the green hens appeared to not be getting any rooster action and were clear. The 4 identical blue eggs all quit at day 7-8 along with the browns a day or two later. Five of the eggs were collected fresh that morning and the only one of those to hatch was clubbed chick. The rest had gotten quite cold. Two that hatched were from the darkest looking olive colored eggs and the last 4 from identical sage green eggs. So hatch rate was highly correlated with individual hens.

I have 22 more incubating now from an inspected breeder and on day 4 18/18 WTB eggs are growing well. The remaining 4 are Marans and I can’t see a thing.