small chick, what should i do?

[deborahca]

My barred rock chick, which should be the biggest of the four (except I don't really know what to expect from the Easter Eggers) appears at 2 weeks to be growing slower than the others. She acts normally as far as I can tell. Eats, drinks, is fairly active. Slightly persecuted by the larger EE, but still getting at the food.

I've read about runting/stunting but am left wondering what, if anything, I could or should do to give her the best chance of being well. I don't care if she turns out undersized at this point. I'd just rather not find her toes up...

 

[Judy]

I'd just make sure she is not getting kept away from the food. More than one feeding station might be a good idea. If you think she's not getting all she wants to eat, you could always separate her oncce or twice a day and let her eat for a few minutes by herself.

Sometimes one will grow more slowly and catch up later, or just stay smaller than the others. I hope it works out OK!

 

[petalumapaul]

I have a similar problem. One of our chicks is just small, we named her Teensie.
Yesterday I weighed them on a postal scale.
Two big ones are 5 oz.
Three middle chicks are about 4 oz.
Teensie is 2.8

She seems healthy enough, and she is growing. I wonder if she will be a good layer when she's full grown?

 

[Judy]

Time will tell. She might or might not have some sort of defect.

Maybe she will turn out to be your best layer!

 

[Mountain Peeps]

I'd just make sure she is not getting kept away from the food. More than one feeding station might be a good idea. If you think she's not getting all she wants to eat, you could always separate her oncce or twice a day and let her eat for a few minutes by herself.

Sometimes one will grow more slowly and catch up later, or just stay smaller than the others. I hope it works out OK!

X2

 

[deborahca]

Watched her eating this morning, and I think she's doing fine in that respect. Once she's chowing down, the others sometimes try to push their way in, and she just keeps eating! She did like to perch on the feeder before I added the jar top to provide extra supply. Maybe I'll get a second feeder and leave the top off that one. They make a mess with the shavings that way, but it might make her happy.

I'm a first time chick mom, so I guess I'm extra-obsessed. Yesterday I saw her scratch her head a couple of times and started worrying about that! Picked her up (she's the easiest to handle, which also worries me, because, well, see the first sentence in the paragraph) and could find nothing amiss. Not doing it today. Maybe got a shaving someplace irritating. She IS the second most likely to fly out of the brooder at this point, so she's not a total limp thing. She's become kind of my favorite, is the problem.

 

[Judy]

The scratching head thing is certainly not a problem. The do a lot of "fluff" shedding, and growng, dropping and growing more feathers in the first several months. Honestly, I'd be amazed if they didn't itch now and then! They will also "preen"o r groom their feathers, and that can look like itching. Quite normal. They have an oil gland at the base of their tail which the use to keep their feathers in good shape. She certainly sounds like she's doing fine to me!

 

[deborahca]

The scratching head thing is certainly not a problem. The do a lot of "fluff" shedding, and growng, dropping and growing more feathers in the first several months. Honestly, I'd be amazed if they didn't itch now and then! They will also "preen"o r groom their feathers, and that can look like itching. Quite normal. They have an oil gland at the base of their tail which the use to keep their feathers in good shape. She certainly sounds like she's doing fine to me!

Ah, very true!

I have parrots, although they were considerably more mature when I got them than the chicks are. I'm aware of normal preening, pinfeathers and even "helping" to remove the feather sheath. This was persistent scratching at the same spot beyond what I'd have considered preening behavior, and it persisted over the course of a day. I think she might have gotten a bit of shaving in her ear, since that was the location. I picked her up and found no new feathers growing in that spot, and went over her looking for debris, found nothing. But come to think of it, she stopped the behavior at that point!

As a bit of an update, she's now starting to catch up with the Rhode Island Red chick, so I think she just went through a slow patch. She's got her "bars" coming in and looks a little motheaten, but I think she's going to be fine. I moved the flock into a larger brooder (UHaul Wardrobe box) and they took that pretty well!

 

[farnorth]

My barred rock chick, which should be the biggest of the four (except I don't really know what to expect from the Easter Eggers) appears at 2 weeks to be growing slower than the others. She acts normally as far as I can tell. Eats, drinks, is fairly active. Slightly persecuted by the larger EE, but still getting at the food.

I've read about runting/stunting but am left wondering what, if anything, I could or should do to give her the best chance of being well. I don't care if she turns out undersized at this point. I'd just rather not find her toes up...

If she seems healthy and is eating and growing I would not worry. The smallest undersized slow growing chick is now my largest hen and the one chick that was huge compared to everyone else is my smallest hen (but lays the largest eggs). So they just don't all grow at the same rate.

 

[deborahca]

She's caught up again and no longer seems "runty". Here's my full "chorus line".