Help! 6 Month Old Hen

1) Partridge Cochin hen, 6 months old, weight seems to be normal compared to flockmates

2) I went to let them out of their coop yesterday morning and she was the only one who didn't come outside. She was still sitting up on her roost inside. She came out slowly and waddling kind of like a penguin. Then she turned around and I noticed that all of her rear feathers were missing and she had a big bloody sore. The other hens started pecking at it, so I immediately brought her inside away from them.

3) I discovered her like this on Saturday morning, so she has been like this for one full day that I am aware of. I did not notice anything on Friday. I know that on Thursday her feathers were still there because I remember seeing that she had a mud and a little poop on them.

4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms? No

5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma. Yes, see picture above for what is going on.

6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation. I really had no idea! We have a super predator proof run and coop. They do not free range outside of the run. There are no signs of anything coming in and no clumps of feathers, etc. We have had ice/snow on the ground in their run and I have been covering it with straw. Could she have laid on the snow/ice and frozen to it??

7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all. -- She is eating and drinking normally. She eats organic layer feed and has oyster shells available. They get a little bit of organic scratch spread out in the run each day. They have fresh water that I put probiotics in every few weeks (big ole bird brand). Right now she has water with electrolytes in it, as well as her regular organic layer feed.

8) Her Poop looks normal.

9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far? I have her a bath in warm water and epsom salt yesterday morning when I first brought her inside. She laid a normal looking egg shortly after that. I sprayed her backside with Theracyn Poultry Wound Spray and Blu-Kote yesterday. The Blu-Kote made it really hard to see the wound, so today I only used Theracyn. She has not laid down at all since I discovered her over 24 hrs ago. She just stands. She is now living in a large wire dog crate covered in towels. She has water with electrolytes and her layer feed.

10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? I would like advice on what could be wrong with her and is it something that I can treat at home. Will she be able to heal and recover from this? I do not want her to suffer, so if it's not something she will be able to recover from, I'd like to know if I should have her put to sleep.

11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help. -- See picture above

12) Describe the housing/bedding in use. -- Their coop has river sand inside of it. When we had really low temps, I put a layer of straw over the sand, but I removed that about a week ago. They sleep up on 2 x 4 roosting bars. There is pine shavings and straw inside of their nest boxes. Outside in their run, they have river sand. It has been covered by snow and ice for quite awhile, which I covered with straw. We had a big thaw recently and now we are back to only sand. They are fully contained in their run and coop.

She was probably cannibalized by the other chickens. There can be several reasons for this, if ahe was very low in the pecking order, if they are over crowded, bored, or lacking in protein in their diet, and sometimes different colors or ages from others. The problem could be from not getting out to free range. Limit the scratch grains to less than 10% of their diet--I know this can be helpful to give them something to scratch around in winter, but you may want to increase their protein to 20% flockraiser or supplement the layer feed with 24% gamebird starter. Vetericyn spray is good to apply, but what you are using now is fine. Her feathers should start to grown in in a few weeks, but when pin feathers come in they may pull them out again unless you keep the barespot covered in either BluKote or something like Nustock Cream, a bad tasting opaque sulfur/pine based cream that will promote heqling.