advice for chicken with a head wound?

[Raptorchick]

I'm fairly new to chickens, but I recently found one of my two month olds missing the flesh on the near half of her wing, with the end half bare bone. This is day 12 of her recovery, and I had the same concerns, especially since there was literally only muscle and bone with very little skin. I was advised on here to clean daily with a half betadine/half water mixture, then coat with neosporin or antibiotic ointment, then pour sugar over the ointment, and gauze up. I did that for my pullet till day 9, which scabbed over completely, looked real black and crusty. Day ten the scabs were lifted, and the all the black crusties basically fell off, undernearth was pink new skin. I've been using medical wound honey the last two days, and the results are amazing. I can't see any bone anymore, day 12, I'm hoping for a full recovery by day 30, if not sooner. I hope this helps, speedy recovery to you both!

 

[AceWeasel]

whoo, I'm pretty sure the amount of skull showing is getting smaller and her health is back to the point where she's laid 2 eggs in less than 30 hours (her previous normal) instead of every other day. we also got rid of the roosters and the most aggressive of the hens (who I was worried would seriously start starting fights with our boss hen, who is a tough enough buff Orpington she beat the roosters into submission more than once and the ducks don't even think of pushing around, she was already bullying the other hens and had attempted to start fights with Honey a couple times already) so tomorrow I'm going to start putting blu-kote on her instead of the wound spray and slowly start working her back into the remaining flock. the remaining hens are of a temperament I'm not too worried about them being too hard on poor Sweetie. even Honey, as tough as she can be, is generally good natured (she just doesn't put up with any bullcrap). she's still coming inside at night and when I'm not out to supervise for now however.

 

[Eggcessive]

Good to hear that she is improving. Use a lot of caution in reintroducing her. Once they are gone for a week, the flock tends to attack. It helps to have supervised visits, and a dog crate with food and water can be a safe place when back in the coop for a few days.

 

[AceWeasel]

Good to hear that she is improving. Use a lot of caution in reintroducing her. Once they are gone for a week, the flock tends to attack. It helps to have supervised visits, and a dog crate with food and water can be a safe place when back in the coop for a few days.

yeah, I plant to use some chicken wire for a corral for her while the rest are roaming the backyard. she's also been in my room, which has a sliding door to the backyard in it, she's right by it and they've been on the back deck talking to her the last couple days too.

I'm pretty lucky with Honey being the top bird in the flock right now since she's pretty accepting of other birds so long as they don't give her any fuss and the rest, for the most part, take their cues on how to treat any new additions from her. my late turkey got accepted almost right away since he was very respectful to her and she took a liking to him because of that. she was like that with the ducks too. well, she had to give Francis a peck on the bill a time or two for trying to push her around, but he learned fast not to give her any fuss and then she was perfectly okay with him. that'll make getting Sweetie back in the flock easier than it could be otherwise.

it's really kind of funny with Honey, she can be one of the chillest, most accepting birds I've seen sometimes, but she's ready to put another bird in their place the moment they give her any fuss.

 

[AceWeasel]

UPDATE:
she's healing up well and we're even getting new feathers coming in.

I started keeping the room darker so she'd be less likely to lay eggs and focus more on healing up. she's going outside in a little corral part of the day and getting some closely observed wandering time too. Honey, our Orpington, is fine with her, the ducks are fine with her, now we just need to wait for Lina, our golden Sebright, and Nine, our silkie/Sebright mix, to get use to her being back in the flock.

there has been one little unexpected development.
Sweetie has started doing one and two beat crows in the morning when the morning sunlight shines in the room. unfortunately for me I'm mostly nocturnal and it has been reducing how much sleep I'm able to get.

 

[AceWeasel]

She slept outside with the other chickens for the first time since her injury last night. She's still getting bossed around by our little Sebright Lina and Sebright/silkie mix Nine, but Honey, our Orpington (and her mom), and Molasses, our Australorp/silkie (who was also hatched by Honey the same time as Sweetie), are fine with her and treat her like she was never gone.

She healed up pretty damn well and probably could have gotten her out a little sooner if we didn't have some days hot enough she made it clear she'd rather be inside where there's air conditioning.