How to make one of my girls more chickeny?

[dehill]

Hi team,

I have a couple of silkies raised from chick. One with a surrogate, but she rejected the other and I had to raise her by hand. Nursed back to life on raw egg, enemas for impacted poo and all the usual shenanigans for small solo chicks.

I eventually reintroduced her very slowly and she’s now living with the flock, but her behaviour is extremely odd. Anyone got any thoughts?

She doesn’t move around much, not even to run away from me. Just stands around, or sits, usually huddled in the corner of the enclosed run. Refuses to go outside with the rest of the flock, in fact hides from them when they come in (photos attached - she’s the black lunatic huddled in the corner). Doesn’t seem to know to scratch around much. Doesn’t go into the coop at night by herself. Putting her to bed is becoming a bit of a pain!

The others do peck at her a bit but nothing too strong.

She’s been in with them for a good 2/3 weeks now, after a month separated in the same pen waiting for her to get to a similar size.

I guess I thought she’d pick up the behaviour within a couple of weeks, but sadly not.

She’s not blind, and I’ve trimmed her eyebrows in case vision was a problem, but it’s no better.

I put her outside today and she just searched for a corner to huddle in. Despite me lobbing corn around her which she didn’t even peck at.

Bizarre!

All thoughts welcome.

 

[dehill]

Another pic with arrow!

 

[Shadrach]

One with a surrogate, but she rejected the other and I had to raise her by hand.

My thoughts are your answer is right there above.
There is something wrong with the chick. You may never find out what, but lots of hens I've known know when they hatched a sick chick and abandon it.
You don't mention where the chicks came from and how the hatch went.

I can't see there is much you can do now. A top to toe health check I expect you will have done and if you couldn't see a problem then you can't fix it.
There are many possibilities, but your problem now is judging whether this chick is ever going to have the qualiity of life it should have in your keeping circumstances.

 

[dehill]

Thank you. The chick came from a local breeder at a day old. The surrogate mum wasn’t the most diligent so I thought she’d just reacted badly - maybe there was something up with Lazarus all along. I’ll keep an eye and make a decision.