Extremely Slow Feather Growth in Lavender Orpingtons

[LLCoyote]

This picture is a terrible but the chick on the right is the smallest chick in my brooder and his/her feather development is glacial at best. At first I thought maybe it was a roo (straight run) but now you can see the chick on the left, which is from the same hatch as it, has a lot more feathers than it. The left chick has wing feathers, tail feathers, and feathers on his/her back. Right chick has some wing feathers and a few little stubs where feathers will (hopefully) grow on his tail. Nothing else. Pecking is not a problem. These are extremely docile chicks and I rarely see or hear them fighting. No injuries, no redness to hint to feather pulling. They are all on the same diet and the other two seem to be doing quite well on it. The chick is active and appear healthy other than the feather thing.

I read somewhere online that feather growth can be stunted in lavender orps but it was very short and when I looked for information a lot of it was information on genetics that would take some significant digging for me to decipher. I just want to know if I need to be doing anything for it to help stimulate good feather growth or if this may relate to an underline health issue I should be aware of.

 

[henless]

From the picture, it looks like the chick on the right is bigger than the other one? I would bet it is a roo, due to the slow feathering and the comb. You can really see the comb when you click on the pic to enlarge it.

I have 8 English BBS Orps. Four of them feathered much slower than the others. I banded them to see how they turned out. Of the four, 3 will be roos.

Here are two, see how they still have lots of down and not as much feathering?



Compare those to these. See the difference? The pullets have much more feathering. Also, the roos with have thicker legs.



This is guaranteed, but usually the slower to feather chicks are roos, but not always.

 

[LLCoyote]

Well seeing yours makes me a lot less nervous. I am getting the same feeling that it's a he. He's actually smaller than the one on the left but she was farther back from the camera, which is why it looks that way. I haven't noticed any difference in leg thickness but the comb is a little larger than the female and just a bit pinker. So thank you. I'd much rather it be a roo than something to be wrong with it.


(I thought this picture would emphasize what I was saying but it doesn't, it's just funny.)