Reintroducing a sick (now cured) hen after two weeks

[RedTailRanch6]

For the full story, you can see my post here.

The shorter version is that I have a 6 month old pullet who was found on the edge of death. I was told to put her down by two vets (one who thought it was mareks) but after a night on fluids she was right as rain. Turned out she had a minor yeast infection and had been kept from food and water by the other 5 pullets (same age). They have all started laying within the last few weeks.

After two weeks in the house on meds to get rid of the yeast infection and lots of R&R (including some nice TV marathons, see photo) we tried reintroducing her on Saturday morning. I partitioned the run and had her by herself. She seemed to be very comfortable and happy, as did the others as they all took dust baths (see photo). Accordingly, later that evening I removed the partition and watched her for about an hour. I saw a few little pecks from the most aggressive of the girls, but nothing too concerning. I checked in again that night and they were all comfy together in the hen house. That next morning, again there were no issues.

However, when I got back home after some errands around 10:30 on Sunday morning, I found her cowering in a corner with her wing tangled around a branch. She was unable to walk and shaky on her legs when standing. I brought her back inside and she is now recuperating with some fresh food and water. Still not up and walking, but definitely more at ease.

So how can I reintroduce her to flock? She has become our favorite, so I can't stand the thought of losing her. The run is about 15 x 20 with a 6 x 6 hen house. It's all 6 feet tall so there is, what I thought, plenty of room for 6 pullets. I've never had this issue in the past, though my last flock was let out in my back yard (different house with no predators) during the day.

Is she destined to be a house chicken or do I need to use the excuse to finally build a separate chicken tractor?

 

[aart]

Single bird integrations are the hardest.
House her adjacent to the other birds, separated by 2x4 wire fencing, for several weeks.
You may need to set up a little coop/run for her to do this, but sounds like your run is plenty big to pull that off.
Spread some treats along the separating fence once a day to help them get used to 'sharing' food.

Maybe add another bird to her enclosure for a few hours under supervision after a couple weeks and see how it goes.
She needs to bond with a buddy or 2 before getting her back into the main population.

May try mixing and matching the populations between the 2 enclosures to break the territoriality aspect that creates most integration problems.

 

[RedTailRanch6]

Single bird integrations are the hardest.
House her adjacent to the other birds, separated by 2x4 wire fencing, for several weeks.
You may need to set up a little coop/run for her to do this, but sounds like your run is plenty big to pull that off.
Spread some treats along the separating fence once a day to help them get used to 'sharing' food.

Maybe add another bird to her enclosure for a few hours under supervision after a couple weeks and see how it goes.
She needs to bond with a buddy or 2 before getting her back into the main population.

May try mixing and matching the populations between the 2 enclosures to break the territoriality aspect that creates most integration problems.

Fantastic advice, thank you so very much for the input.

 

[aart]

Fantastic advice, thank you so very much for the input.

You're welcome, please post here to let us know if and how you work it out.