Have 9 week blue copper marans pullet that has been different since it hatched. Doesn't respond to loud noises like other chicks, has to be put away at night or is left outside in run all night. Seems brain damaged. What do you do with a chick like this if you only plan to keep 15 hens and are not able to free range them. Keep it, rehome it, eat it?
Everyone has different sensibilities. If I think they'll survive to butcher weight and don't have an illness that will affect the other birds, they get eaten. They shouldn't pass their genes on to others.
Really the choice is up to you and what you are willing to do. Being that you don't free range and you will go out there every night to close up the coop and feed and water them, you very well can keep the girl. Would you be willing to have to put her in the coop every night if she is a solid egg layer? Rehoming her would be hard as it takes a special person to take care of a special needs chicken. I have one chick who has a problem with a leg. It is a small chick and flys really well when it needs to go fast but there seems to be a delay in the brain-leg connection unless it goes slow. I chose to keep it at least until I know the gender because the mother is a really good egg layer when she lays and is a supurb broody. If it is female I can use it as a egg layer or broody, if it is male I have no use for it and have to rethink what I am willing to deal with and if it stays or goes (of course I could get attached by then). I talk to someone else on here that has a girl with no tongue and needed for several months to be feed and watered by syringe. She loved her girl and her girl lost it later in life so she was willing to deal with anything that came. I would not suggest hatching any of her eggs as the problem she has may be passed down, but you can eat her eggs. Watch her and figure out what all her needs are, then think about what it would take to care for her and if you can do it.
I never planned on breeding (total agree with you). Planned on processing extra roosters from hatch. Have concerns that chick will never be able find nest box based on inability to find way back in at night.
For me, it's about quality of life. If it seems alright, I'd get her up to weight and then process her. If her quality of life is bad, then cull her.
