Skinny 11 week old flock

SoManyQuestions

In the Brooder
May 28, 2016
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These are the first chickens I have ever had and I'm constantly afraid I'm doing something wrong.. I have 6 EES and 2 Silkies all around 11 weeks of age. They have had free access to organic grower/starter food since I got them around 4 weeks old but I feel like they are skinny. I've started to let them free range for a couple hours each afternoon and plan to leave them or more once the silkies are too big for my cats to eat. Going to get wormer in the next couple days even though I haven't seen any sign of them other than them being skinny. What else should I be doing??
 
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They don't look skinny to me but I feel like they should have more meat on their breastbones by now.. I'm hoping to get my cousin who had had a lot of chickens to come up to feel them tomorrow in case I'm worried unnecessarily.
 
I can tell you with quite confidence that they're growing as they should. Their feathers look beautiful, they look like they're in great shape. You'll never feel breasts on these birds like you'd expect if your expectation is from store-bought chicken breasts. These birds are bred for egg production, they're not big meaty birds. I once processed extra cockerels that were Easter eggers and was surprised by the tiny breasts at 5 months old, shouldn't have been, but I was expecting at least something.. they weren't enough for a nugget. And they were well fed, healthy birds!
I do want to notify you of a problem, if you're already aware, I apologise.
You've got at least three cockerels in your Easter eggers bunch. The amount of pullets you'll have won't be enough to keep them all. If I can help you any more with identification, let me know, I'd just need conformation that all Easter eggers are pictured. (can't do silkies)
 
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Thank you so much y'all! I feel better :) I'm trying to wait for the crowing to start to be sure but some days I think I could have as many as 5 EE roosters.. From those pictures which 3 do you think? I'm going to rehome all but one,if I can ever pick, and basically start my little flock over soon.
 
The ones that are definitely cockerels are the one with black head and red wing splotches, the one with dark grey band around neck with red Wing splotches in this picture. The one on the left is pretty questionable, over all gold red color with that disconcerting deep red on wings.
The third definite is pictured in the other picture in the back right, multi colored with red wings.
Deep red on the wings is a sure fire sign.. although the overall gold red bird is more uniform so I'm not quite positive about that one. Of the non red winged birds I'm not ruling out cockerel, I just don't see the dead giveaways
 

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