Bald chicks

[Royal Henfield]

A week into incubating some eggs last year the humidity control on my incubator started playing up. Fortunately I had 2 birds go broody (has never happened before) and so I removed the eggs from the incubator & split them between the 2 birds - cream legbar eggs to one & exchequer leghorn eggs to the other. Both birds hatched the eggs - the cream legbars 7 out of 8 the other one 4 out of 8 (the broody was a bit over zealous & squashed some). The 2 batches were kept in separate runs but in the same place, on grass & were fed the same.

From the outset the Ex leghorns were visibly growing much faster (they are bigger birds anyway but it was particularly noticeable) & depite only being half the number were eating twice as much food. The Cream Legbars were lively & keen to eat but they just didn't seem to grow. They started to show their feathers as normal at about 3 days old & appeared to be feathering up ok but grew no feathers on their heads other than a bit of fuzz. I took them away from the broody at about 6 weeks, at that time one of the females went hunched & died. The remainder were still lively. At 12 weeks I gave up & culled them - they were about the size I would expect a bird to be at 4 - 5 weeks, they had no feathers on their heads (females slightly better than the males) & also no feathers on the sides of their bodies under the wings. Some of the feathers that they did have looked a bit twisted or stunted. They all had good legs / feet. The Ex Leghorns were by then big, healthy birds & are now laying well.

I have failed to find any reference anywhere to chicks not feathering properly - the only thing I learnt from a google search is that there are gentlemen who have a penchant for ladies with no hair! Any other searches only came up with moulting & feather pecking of adult birds.

My thoughts have been:
Health/viability of the Cream Legbar eggs from the outset - however they came from different birds & all hatched with no problem

As they were with a broody I only fed them chick crumbs for the first 3 weeks - they then ate grain with the mother - however the Ex Leghorns were fed the same way. (Possible deficiency that CLs are more susceptible to?)

A virus - however apart from the lack of feathers they appeared healthy & lively

I apologise for this lengthy post but I am very anxious to get a good hatch this year as I had no CL replacements last year - I would be really grateful for any views, suggestions, thoughts etc.

 

[chrismahon]

Hello Royal Henfield. This is a strange one so I am looking at the common denominators. The only ones I can see are lack of protein as the chick crumb was stopped early, the Cream Legbar cockerel and Cream Legbar parents diet. They need high protein for feathering and perhaps the Ex Leghorns made up for this by eating far more -they will have greater capacity inbuilt as they are a prolific egg laying breed. If there is a genetic problem with the CL cockerel it would explain the uniformity of failure. But it could also be that the one broody did not keep the chicks warm enough for some reason? Was one much younger than the other? Poor diet of the parents may introduce deformities, but they would be seen from birth I think. I discounted any virus. one other thing is the diet of the mother that the chicks were eating. If it was layers pellets the high Calcium would usually kill the young chicks or severely damage their liver/ kidneys and perhaps it is that which the CL's were most susceptible to.

Hope that helps. I agree you need to sort the problem out before getting any more. A waste of time and money otherwise. The humidity control on your incubator could have been made manual with a tub or tubs of water -it doesn't need to be that precise. We have two semi-autos with no humidity control and only ever lost two chicks by failing to reduce the humidity in the machine when the ambient humidity rose. As a result the air sac didn't form properly.

 

[Marigold]

Hi RH, this is a very interesting problem.
Because in effect you have a control group, the Leghorns, you could probably rule out some of the more obvious causes due to humidity changes in the incubator at a critical time, since both sets of eggs hatched satisfactorily under the two hens. Since one group then went on to grow and mature well, the problem would appear to be located in the CLBs only.
I expect the most likely cause is exposure to some kind of runting and stunting virus in the early days of the CLBs chicks' lives. According to ''The Poultry Farmers and Managers Veterinary Handbook ' by Peter W. Laing, runting and stunting is caused by a group of viruses which basically attack the chicks small intestine so they can't properly absorb the food they're eating and consequently fail to grow as expected.
He says
'Digestion takes place along the whole length of the small intestine that has a tightly folded lining of digestive cells. The folds are prolonged into innumerable microscopic finger like projections called villi; this construction gives the chicken an enormous surface area across which digestion can take place. In runting and stunting disease of young chickens the causal viruses destroy the villae so that, even if the chicks do not die but slowly recover, the effective surface area of the intestine for digestion is much reduced and nutrients cannot be efficiently absorbed across it. This is the meaning of the term malabsorption. The result is that the chicks do not grow properly and remain runted and stunted.'
Further on, he says
'It is now established that some of the viruses that cause malabsorption can be egg-transmitted. However, newly- hatched chicks also pick up these infections very quickly after hatching, either at the hatchery or on the farm.'

So it would seem possible that the CLBs either acquired the virus(es) in the egg, or from some source in the environment in their particular broody coop, which presumably wasn't in contact with the other coop and the hen housing the Leghorn chicks.
At the end of your post you did say they appeared to be OK except for the lack of feathering, although earlier you say you culled them because they didn't seem to grow enough, were still at the 4-week stage by 12 weeks old. That sounds like typical runting and stunting - many chicks die early, as did one of yours, but others can survive even into early adulthood but will never get to their full size or be productive birds. The lack of feathering would not be surprising when we all know how much resources it takes for a hen to recover from a moult, and without the ability to absorb enough nourishment this might well put more strain on the affected chicks. Perhaps next time you might consider feeding chick crumb for longer than 3 weeks to those chicks hatched under a broody, as she would also benefit from the higher protein feed after her 3- week sitting marathon, and the chicks would certainly grow well on a more balanced and nutritious feed, until transferring to growers feed at about 8 weeks. However, this wouldn't be any help to chicks affected by runting and stunting viruses.
As to whether they could possibly have contracted a virus in the egg, or whether the same parent birds would be safe use again if this was so, you would just have to try a hatch and see what happened, I expect. If you hatched in an incubator next time, it might be easier to avoid contaminated environmental conditions if they could be raised under more hygienic conditions than is possible out of doors. Or maybe these chicks contracting a virus was just one of those things, bad luck, and lightning wouldn't be likely to strike twice in one place, who knows?
One suggestion might be that, if you have had your CLBs for some time, it might be time to introduce some fresh blood to your flock, and on here we know some good sources of hatching eggs we could recommend.

 

[Royal Henfield]

Well, thank you both for your fulsome replies, there's certainly some food for thought there.
Here goes with another tome -

I think nutrition is a contender. It may sound dull but I didn't know that it was ok for broodies to have chick crumbs for several weeks - I thought that they shouldn't have the coccidiats (sp?). I have had virtually no experience of broodies as, despite having chickens for nearly 20 years I have never had a bird go broody until last year (apart from a silkie bantam that I had for a couple of years). Just to clarify, they had chick crumbs for 3 weeks & then mixed grain & greenstuff for 3 weeks while with the mother. Once weaned they went on to growers pellets. They did not have access to layers pellets at any time. My only thought about this is that with other animals, (I have cattle, sheep & pigs), one that has a poor start can usually be got back to normal by good feeding although will always remain undersize. So if it was just nutrition I perhaps would have expected the feather problem to resolve.

The runting & stunting virus is something I have never heard of & sounds like a distinct possibility. If the virus is in the eggs how does it get there - is it transmitted from the mother when the egg is laid or do the eggs pick it up from the environment? Can it be transmitted by a cockerel? I used a very ancient old boy last year as my younger cockerel got picked off by a bird of prey. The eggs came from a number of different hens but one thing has occurred to me that is not a common denominator - the CLB eggs were laid by my own birds, the Ex Leg eggs were bought so perhaps it was picked up in the nest box. The virus theory would also seem to fit with the fact that the eggs hatched with no problems. As the virus affects the gut it presumably does not have any impact while the chick is gaining nutrition through absorption of the yolk.

I will be trying another hatch this year - nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I would also be very interested in knowing of some good sources of hatching eggs.
I had my original birds from an excellent CLB breeder (probably the best). We keep in touch and swap cockerels from time to time. When he is in the vicinity he come and 'inspects' my birds to make sure that they are true to the breed, I had a gold star last year. I have also sourced cockerels from other places but have found that I get undesirable traits - yellow chicks or losing the autosexing, that I have to breed back out again. I have never bought females or hatched any eggs other than my own. It is so hard to find good CLBs as there has been some very suspect breeding from jumpers on the bandwagon over the years. Somebody I know bought 2 CLB pullets for £40 each at a large show & I felt awful having to tell her that CLBs shouldn't be ginger, I also felt really cross at someone having the audacity to sell them as CLBs.

I'm really grateful to you both for taking the time to think about my problem. When something goes wrong I like to be able to work out why & how if at all possible, it's the only way to learn.

 

[Marigold]

My personal opinion, not based on so much practical experience as you, is that it would be good to give chicks an uninterrupted supply of chick crumb throughout their early weeks, because they are growing so fast that they need the higher protein levels and also would benefit from the vitamins and minerals in a feed specially formulated for their needs. Yes I suppose you could to some extent undo the a results of low-level incomplete nutrition in young birds or other animals, but it's much better to prevent a growth check in the first place. Optimum development of the skeleton and internal organs can only contribute to a strong and healthy hen who will be able to reach maximum productivity throughout her lifetime. I know the traditional way was to feed hen and chicks in exactly the way you were doing, on mixd corn and greens, but wheat is very low in protein and maybe not so beneficial as more modern alternatives. You can get chick crumb without coccidiostats, and I agree with you it would probably be best to avoid medicating the hen unnecessarily. Just have some Coxoid in stock in case any problems develop!
However, if the chicks had been affected by a runting virus, I don't think their lack of growth would be greatly affected by whatever you fed them on, because they couldn't have taken advantage of the goodness in the food.
I suppose that the virus could have got Into the eggs through the porous shells - we all know about the dangers of using dirty eggs for incubation, or of washing eggs in cold water rather than warm, when any pathogens are more likely to penetrate the pores of the shells. So as you say, the virus could have been present in the nestbox, or even transmitted through handling of the eggs by someone with non- sterile hands. The book I quoted said that such viruses can easily be transmitted at the farm or hatchery, not surprising when you consider how microscopic a virus is, and how easy it is to pick one up through contact with an infected source in the environment. Or perhaps the chicks could have been infected after hatch, either from the eggshells lying around or even from the hens feathers. Were the CLBs the expected size at hatch, or did they strike you as a bit small for their breed even at this stage?
I hope you have better luck with your next CLB hatch - when it happens, please return to this thread and let us know how you get on.