8-week old chick got torn up by older hen **picture**

[synness4]

Her back is very torn up and raw and fleshy. We have cleaned her up as well as we can and covered it in triple antibiotic. She seems alert and squawks if she is fussed with, but the wound looks terrible. She won't eat or drink on her own. What suggestions does anybody have?

(See picture below)

P.S. We are 30 miles out of town and won't get to a supply store or vet before morning.

 

[silkiechicken]

Check out the FAQ for how to post pics.

As for wound, keep her quiet and warm and that's about all you can do. Sounds like you already took care of the basics of clean up and ointment. Best of luck!

 

[synness4]

Thank you for the quick reply and the tip on the photo. We went back out to our coop after a couple of hours and a couple more of our chicks were injured, thankfully on a much smaller scale... We had one older chicken in there, because she was getting picked on with our other older chickens and it looks like now she is picking on the littler ones. I've heard that they will continue this once they've started... Is that true or how do you get them to stop?

 

[Nichole77]

I am so sorry. I recently went through a similar situation but they got her on her head and neck. She is recovering well. Separate her and keep her in a clean environment. It sounds like you are doing good so far. I had my little meat head in a pet carrier in my bathroom with flat newspapers as bedding to keep it clean. You don't want anything sticking to the wound. Keep us updated.

 

[synness4]

Sad news on this one... She died overnight. Heartbreaking...

But the others are doing well. We found some other postings about why the hen might be pecking at these babies and so we are trying to supplement her diet with more protein - cat food and a higher protein feed. Anybody have any other ideas?

 

[Half-a-dozen]

Goodness!!!! so sorry for your loss.

Did you say you seperated the one pecking from the babies???

To get mine to stop pecking at each other I spent a lot of time out there discouraging the acts and constantly sprayed their backs with blue kote it seemed to help them not want to do it so much and now as they are getting older their feathers are finally starting to grow back in.

 

[Katy]

Sorry about your chick. I try never to put younger chickens in with adults until they're basically the same size for just this reason. When they're the same size they don't get picked on as easily.

 

[synness4]

Yes, we did separate them. We have two coops... one with older hens. They were originally bullying this hen (Lilly) so we took her out and put her with these babies. Seemed okay for 10 days or so... Then I guess Lilly needed to establish the pecking order with the babies and took it to an extreme. So now she is back with the older hens and the injured ones are living in our spare bathroom until they can go back to the baby coop.

We've had chickens for just over a year and I'd heard of the "pecking order" but we'd only seen it on a very small scale, so this was a brutal introduction. We will definitely start spraying with the blue kote and keep a close eye on them. But will we be able to introduce these babies into the general population ever and be able to trust those hens??

 

[NoSpringChick]

I am so sorry for your loss...

At what age should you introduce chicks to the older flock?

 

[Katy]

I don't like to do it before 14-16 weeks. Not until the young ones are the same size as the older ones.