Healing a scraped beak?

deacons

Songster
Oct 8, 2013
647
110
201
New Hampshire
My poor little Wyandotte hen (Ro) has had a rough summer and early fall. She had a really awful case of bumblefoot that required serious vet intervention, and then went into a heavy molt. Today, while out freeranging, my flock got buzzed by a low flyover from a pair of hawks. The hawks didn't get anyone, thankfully, but in the chaos of them all diving for cover, I think Ro must have collided with a tree trunk or a fencepost and injured her beak.

When I checked everyone over, the first thing I saw was blood dripping down her beak. I thought maybe the top beak had cracked or chipped badly under her nostril, but on closer inspection, it just looks like a surface scrape, almost like when you skin your knee. Luckily it clotted really quickly and wasn't a massive amount of blood loss- from reading some other threads, sounds like injured beaks can bleed a lot.

I'm thankful it's nothing serious, but how in the world do I keep this kind of injury clean and keep infection out?

Within 5 minutes of it happening, it was already this dirty with stuff stuck on it:


I didn't have any saline handy, so I sprayed it off with Vetricyn spray, gently wiped off the debris with some q-tips, and then applied some neosporin. Once cleaned, it didn't look too terrible:


She's in the hospital crate now to hopefully keep dirt out of it while it's still fresh. Will it scab over? I don't like to clean healing wounds too often, but should I be doing anything different because of where this is located?
 
My poor little Wyandotte hen (Ro) has had a rough summer and early fall. She had a really awful case of bumblefoot that required serious vet intervention, and then went into a heavy molt. Today, while out freeranging, my flock got buzzed by a low flyover from a pair of hawks. The hawks didn't get anyone, thankfully, but in the chaos of them all diving for cover, I think Ro must have collided with a tree trunk or a fencepost and injured her beak.

When I checked everyone over, the first thing I saw was blood dripping down her beak. I thought maybe the top beak had cracked or chipped badly under her nostril, but on closer inspection, it just looks like a surface scrape, almost like when you skin your knee. Luckily it clotted really quickly and wasn't a massive amount of blood loss- from reading some other threads, sounds like injured beaks can bleed a lot.

I'm thankful it's nothing serious, but how in the world do I keep this kind of injury clean and keep infection out?

Within 5 minutes of it happening, it was already this dirty with stuff stuck on it:


I didn't have any saline handy, so I sprayed it off with Vetricyn spray, gently wiped off the debris with some q-tips, and then applied some neosporin. Once cleaned, it didn't look too terrible:


She's in the hospital crate now to hopefully keep dirt out of it while it's still fresh. Will it scab over? I don't like to clean healing wounds too often, but should I be doing anything different because of where this is located?

Hi there, I did a 'quick read' from a couple of sites also. It seems like if there is no visible crack it should be ok. If there is a crack it needs repaired. They recommend a vet to see the bird, but honestly, if it's superficial, I would probably try something like 'Nuskin' from the human pharmacy. I would imaging Neosporin (w/o cain) applied at night before roosting would be the best antibiotic to start with. Keep us posted!
 
Hi @boskelli1571 , thanks for taking the time to share that advice.

I took another look at her before bedtime, and it was already looking much better. The spot was much smaller already, and had a coagulated look to it. It's basically a little divot on the side of the beak, but I didn't see any cracks or breaks anywhere. I put a little more neosporin on it after cleaning some of the dried blood away.

I also gave the other girls a better once-over while they were all on the roost. Interestingly, another one of the girls had a chip on the very tip of her beak (which in my experience heals up fine) and had a dent on the "bridge of her nose" if you can picture that on a chicken. She also had a bit of a cut on her comb. That all makes me think maybe they actually just collided head-to-head while scrambling to get under cover.

They're not talking though, so I guess I'll never know for sure ;)
 

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