Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[piptiddlepip]

I got four hens at the same time and they were all advertised as point of lay. At the time, only one of them had a comb. Three of the others duly followed suit and they now all have combs and are laying...except for little Aggie.

 

Aggie is a little lost soul. She has no comb and does not lay, and her face looks more "chickish" than "chickenish", if you get my meaning. She is definitely at the bottom of the pack and, whereas the others mostly tolerate her, sometimes she is chased away from the food bowl in the morning (I've taken to putting down two, so that she gets her fill). She is a happy chicken when free-ranging but always seems to be on her own rather than with the others. And she is sometimes reluctant to go into the run when I go to work, whereas the others go in fairly easily.

 

I have checked her over today and she does not seem to be losing any feathers around her "knickers" and there is no blood on her vent that I can see. She is smaller and lighter than the others, though she does eat well.

 

Should I be worried? Why is she not coming on? She was the same size as the others when I got her but she doesn't seem to be maturing.

[piptiddlepip]

Bump!

[HENthusiastic]

HIya.

My buttercup sounded similar to your little Aggie. She seemed the same size when we got her (and her two friends). The others developed their combs and wattles and their faces turned red and all the time buttercup stayed the same. She ate well and seemed healthy, just really young seeming. As you can see from my signature, she laid her first egg well after the other two (and long after Id decided she just wasn't going to be an egg layer!). However, now she is a right little thug! Shes the most boisterous of all my girls. I think she must just have been a slow developer, or maybe younger than the others. Mind you, shes still not great at the egg laying! She only manages about one egg every 2 or 3 days.

What I seem to pick up from the forum is......... if shes eating, drinking, her vents clean and she seems ok............ she probably is!

 

Good luck, enjoy her and try not to worry.

[piptiddlepip]

Thank you so much! I must admit, she is my favourite and I told her so this morning. The other week all the others had gone to bed and she was still up. She came to the back door doing a lonely little bok, so we chatted to her, stroked her, gave her a treat and guided her back to bed. She's so sweet she breaks my heart sometimes.

[HENthusiastic]

Thats lovely. You enjoy her.