We have the three Silkie chicks. We have had them five days now. One is very tiny. Is there anything special we should be doing for him?
He is eating and drinking. He was just cheaping every once in awhile and it was one cheap. He is cheaping more now. The days are very nice here and at night we have a heat lamp on them.
I just want him or her to survive and any help would be appreciated
Chick Help
Well SUNNY AZ, they say that male chickens are bigger than females. Could it be that you have two males and one female?
Good Luck, Eric
Here is a pic of the size diffrence. The little one is doing okay but, is not full of as much vigor as the two other chicks. Just checking to see if there was anything else I could be doing for this little one to give them the best chance for surviving.
You could mash up a little hard boiled egg yolk and give it to him for protein.
After my guys finished up 10 days of chick starter i put my on gamebird starter crumbles, that has lots of protein, just a thought
Any extra protein, egg, meal worms, hamburger.... that you can get into him will help. You also might try putting a bit of dirt for him to peck around in. (I know that sounds strange, but outside he would be eating it and it does contribute minerals) Keep him warm and don't let the others pick on him. See if you can give him a bit of natural sunlight too. I actually had a dwarf duckling once. It never grew as big as the others, but did just fine once it got going.
I have 2 standard blk australorps. They arrived as day olds and both still had the egg tooth, so i know they are the same age. As they grew, one was so much smaller, i was sure it was a bantam. Now they are 24 weeks old and only in the last month did she catch up in size. So sometimes it just works that way. Sometimes it can be a male female thing, like Eric said. But if its eating and drinking, dont worry too much. Are you sure they are the same age? I think i see an egg tooth on the little one, but not the bigger one.
Everybody's help is extremely appreciated.
The 3 chicks are from the same shipment that our feedstore got in. I guess who knows if ther're from the same hatch.
Of course my daughter felt sorry for this little one so, we just had to rescue it.
I see that everyday it is getting a little stronger. We have kept a very close eye on it.
Thanks again everybody.
Thats good to hear. I think they thrive better in a home environment. I read about a woman who had the same situation. She got all but 2 that were left at the feed store. She felt bad because they looked a little deglected, so she went back a few days later (or so) and got the last 2 lonely chicks. She posted that you could clearly see how much better the first ones looked, over the last two. So keep loving them and they will be great:)
I have the same issue here. I have five new silkie chicks (well, they are almost two months old) and two are buff that are the same size and three are blues. Two are the same size, but one blue is half the size of the others! Late to feathering and everything. It's strange and I hope that it catches up eventually.
We've had them a week now. Little one seems to be thriving but, just not growing like the other two. Thanks goodness other two do not pick on him!
I used alot of the advice given. Thanks bunches.
usually if you look at a silkie chick and it is about 3-5 days old and there is bigger and smaller chicks the smaller are the males. one way to tell but is not always fool proof is to look at the wing feathers.
if you hold a wing up of each the smaller should be the male and have shorter wing feathers that are uneven grown in the secondary row of feathers. males grow slower than the females and they loose there down feathers slower. the bigger ones should have feathered in faster and when you look at their wings will have even feathereing on the secondary row that should be a female. looking by growth and wings not crests/combs cause too young to tell that way it looks like the one on the left is a female and the one on the back right is a male. it's not 100% accurate but i have had it usually pretty close. there might be 1 or 2 in a brooder i find iffy but usually it's right when they are older. i band them pink and blue and see later if i was right and how close i got.
the males will soon catch up once they start to feather in then it will be a guessing game they all start to look the same for a while. i think you are doing great and he'll be just fine. keep up the good work!
silkie
Thanks Silkie. Great Information.