1 Dominique Chick Smaller than the others -

[mattmatts-momma]

Hi,

I have 1 Dominique Chick that is smaller than all of the other chicks that I have. They are all one week old today. I have watched her, she does drink and eat, but just doesn't seem as aggressive with eating as the others.

Does anyone have any suggestions to get her to eat more? I don't want to lose her.

 

[arlee453]

Take her out a couple times a day and offer the starter crumbles mixed with warm water in a small dish (I used the lid of a jar). That worked great to get my slow starters back.

Being small turns into a downward spiral - they are smaller, so can't get to the food as well, so then don't grow as fast, getting even smaller, getting shoved away even more, etc.

Good luck with the chick - hopefully there isn't some underlying problem, but by offering food separately a couple times a day that should help if it's just not getting to the feed enough.

 

[mattmatts-momma]

I'll try that right now. She is very sweet, but so tiny still.

 

[hsm5grls]

I had one white rock that was smaller than the others. She is just starting to catch up in size with the others and they are 16 weeks. I did what arlee suggested and just made sure she was getting her fair share and was not being picked on.

 

[Sasha]

My rooster was the smallest chick, so he never shoved or pushed for food. I would just take him apart and give him some seeds or some other treat to make sure he ate. Now he's about the same size as the hens, and he's the nicest one (he actually like sitting on people and having them pet them).

 

[sunnysidecluckers]

I had one smaller than the rest of the chicks that I got a few years ago. I used to raise parakeets and when the mom didn't want to feed her babies, I purchases a small syringe and made the hole just big enough to get wet food through it. I did this with my baby chick a few times a day I would take some of the food and mix with water and put some in the syringe and open the beak and inject a small bit at a time. This also worked (at least for mine) when I had one that was sort of lethargic. I did this until I saw a a noticable increase on the chick growing and eating better on her own.

 

[mattmatts-momma]

Quote:
I have been taking her out a couple of times a day and feeding her some starter mix with water. She takes a few pecks of food and then sits down to take a nap. She just doesn't seem to eat alot and she isn't nearly as aggressive with the food as the others. She does eat and drink on her own also.

How long do you think it will take to see a noticable increase in her size?

 

[mattmatts-momma]

Also, does anyone have any suggestions as to maybe some treats that I could mix with her food.

 

[SillyChick]

Yogurt is a nice treat to mix with the feed. Thank you for caring for the chick. I hope she lives happily. It might be caused by a deformity during her first few weeks in the egg. Good luck!

 

[mattmatts-momma]

Quote:
I just gave her some starter mixed with some yogurt my daughter didn't finish yesterday and she did eat more than she has been eating, when I have had her out alone to eat.

Do you know what kind of deformity happens during the first week in the egg? What would the long term effects be to the chick? Will she recover?