Help with raising chickens

[BoulderChicken]

My family recently had one of our hens give birth to two baby chickens that are about a week old. We bought our first chickens as pullets so we don't have much experience in raising small and young chicks. However the problem is that the mother hen seems to be neglecting one of the chickens and spending all of her time with the other. They were born about a day apart and the younger one is the one we are having problems with. She is noticeably smaller than the older one, and has developed a twitch in her head. The mother hen has seemingly given up on the young one, and devotes most of her time to showing the older one around while leaving the young one to fend for its self.

We just took the younger one inside and have it nesting in a box with a heat light over it. We did this because we thought the mother hen didn't spend enough time on the nest with this one and she needs the incubation. The mother hen refuses to nest unless at night time, or unless the older one wants to nest.

The older one is fine, and despite being a week old is using its wings, and seems a lot more healthy then the younger one.

This is our first time raising this young of chicks so any advice or information you can provide would be a great help!

Love the forum, and thank you for the help!

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

Sorry I don't have enough experience to know what's going on but if the mother is neglecting the chick it looks like you will have to take over. I recently put five day-old chicks under my broody BO hen and she immediately adopted all of them, so there must definitely be something wrong if your hen is rejecting a baby.

Poor thing. Is she eating and drinking normally?

 

[ajay]

I don't know anything about moving threads, but I think you might get better answers on Chicken Behaviors and Egglaying. This seems to be a popular topic on that forum.

Good luck!