I have new chicks that started hatching February 1st.. The last one to hatch was on February 4th.. All of them are basically the same size except for the youngest one.. It was not real strong from the beginning and I actually didn't think it was going to make it.. I ended up putting the next youngest chick in the incubator with it for a couple of days as a secondary brooder. By the second day, it was eating & drinking and acting like a normal chick so the next day I put them back in with the others. Now here we are a week and a half later.. The oldest ones are almost 2 weeks old.. most will be on Wed and Thurs this week. The little one is every bit as active as the rest.. it's feathering out like the others but hasn't really grown much at all. Here is a picture of one who looks similar, is 3 days old and about 3 times as big... Sorry it's a little blurry on one side... little buggers wouldn't stand still.. There weren't any bantams in the flock I got the eggs from and it was the same size as the others when it hatched... it just isn't growing at the same rate. It's feathering out at the same rate as the others and acts just fine... Is it possible for a bantam size to come from LF parents? Any ideas?
Ha! I have the opposite problem at the moment. I helped GIGANTOR hatch and that chick looks 3 days older than all the rest. There can always be runts. I don't think it has anything to do with Banty genes, except Bantys were originally made by breeding the runts. Sometimes runts catch up, sometimes they end up as smaller adults, and sometimes they don't make it. If the chick is active and not getting trampled by the siblings, it will likely be fine. In a few more weeks you might not be able to tell the difference between the runt and the other chicks.
Maybe your runt will do like the one I once had. I had 15 BR packing peanuts, one of which just seemed to not grow at all for the longest time. They came with an order of bantam cochins, and this BR cockerel was the same size as the cochins, if not a little smaller. By the time we moved them outside, the runt was still the size of the bantams while the others were twice as big. By the time we butchered, though, at 18 weeks, the runt was exactly the same size as his hatch mates. We could no longer tell which one he was.
