Swollen and bleeding base of feather/follicle

[Chickenlady46]

Hello,

Found one of my hens with her chest feathers covered in blood 4 days ago. She was obviously weak and not feeling well. On examining her she has a very small lump (about a little finger nail size) at the base of one of her upper/left side chest feathers that had been bleeding over night.

I cleaned it and it bled quite a bit from a small 'hole' - doesn't seem deep, at the top of the little lump and at the base of the feather shaft. Bandaged her up for 3 days until the bandage was falling off, so removed it. It was dry and scabby. She was back to normal again after her 'blood loss'.

Unfortunately, she has pecked it again and it started bleeding. I again washed it - but there really seemed to be a LOT of blood coming out of it. Took a while to stop it bleeding and she is now bandaged up again and is again weak and looking like she is suffering from the loss of blood.

Does anyone know what may have caused this or what it is? Are chicken wounds like head wounds on people and bleed/look worse than they really are?

I'm reluctant to take her to the vets as all our local ones seem pretty clueless where chickens are concerned and just dish out antibiotics and/or say they don't really know.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Chickenlady46]

An update:

After 3 weeks in a bandage and the 'lump' looking ok, my hen managed somehow to get to it and it opened up again.

Decided to take her to the vets. It was pouring with blood :-( The vet said she has injured or damaged a blood vessel in there and that's why it's bleeding so much.

She's booked in for an op tomorrow to have the lump removed, then there should just be a few stitches to heal up.

She was such a good girl in the vets. Feeling so worried, anxious and upset about tomorrow. She's a special hen and I love her so much :-((

I know most people think I'm nuts, but am sure there's lots of people on here who feel the same way about their chickens!