Weird looking chick, dwarf?

[BeefQuesoritto]

I have 5 white leghorn pullet chicks, one week old. 4 are growing fine, all healthy, friendly, vigourous eaters and drinkers. 1 is also friendly and a vigourous eater / drinker, but she just looks... Weird.

All the chicks think I have treats, so she's a little hard to take pics of. I tried to get another chick in with her, too, just to show just how... weird she looks compared to them.

She just doesn't look as long in the body as the other chicks. It's most apparent from the top view.



She looks a little less weird from the side, but still not... quite normal.



So, what's up with her?

 

[SmiYa0126]

@Overo Mare is the smaller chick the same breed as the others?

 

[Painted Calls]

Appears to be. I would consider this a failure to thrive chick.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Weird? Yes. It could be different things. One theory I'll mention, how fast they feather out depends on a certain gene pair. There are different alleles at that gene pair, some fast feathering and some slow fathering. I read an article about that in the last month but did not keep a link. Supposedly a chicken 4 months old may not be fully feathered, I think the small of the back is the last place to get feathers. That is extremely rare.

That chick is only one week old. With the normal slow feathering genes that chick should be further along. Something is weird and I don't know what is causing it. As longs the chick is eating, drinking, and acting normally I'd give it a chance, but I probably would not hatch chicks form it in case it is genetic.

 

[BeefQuesoritto]

Weird? Yes. It could be different things. One theory I'll mention, how fast they feather out depends on a certain gene pair. There are different alleles at that gene pair, some fast feathering and some slow fathering. I read an article about that in the last month but did not keep a link. Supposedly a chicken 4 months old may not be fully feathered, I think the small of the back is the last place to get feathers. That is extremely rare.

That chick is only one week old. With the normal slow feathering genes that chick should be further along. Something is weird and I don't know what is causing it. As longs the chick is eating, drinking, and acting normally I'd give it a chance, but I probably would not hatch chicks form it in case it is genetic.

Yeah, I was thinking that even if she becomes an adult, there's no way I could keep her chicks. Thank you and @Overo Mare for taking a look at my weirdo.

 

[AlleysChicks]

I was just gonna post and ask about this. I have a polish chick like this. This bunch is 3 weeks old. I had bought 6 but the other 3 died within a week of bringing them home. They had slow feather growth and stunted size.

 

[BeefQuesoritto]

Update on her now that she's fully grown. I can no longer tell her apart from the other 4 leghorns without close inspection. She's still very small, but no longer looks immediately "off" like she had as a chick.I probably won't use her for breeding ever, but she can lay eggs as long as she cares to!