bleed quill and worrisome behavior

[aggiemae]

Our otherwise healthy 18 mo old (production) RIR is one of those hens who loosed so many feathers that she in nearly bald so I have been keeping a close eye on her since it has been cold and raining out.

She has loss nearly all the feathers on her back and wings but in the past few days her new quills have finally sprouted and are showing feathers at the tips. This morning she was walking slowly and way down to the ground and when I took a closer look I saw that her lower back was covered with blood so I caught her (she isn't exactly a "lap chicken). This is actually the first time I have handled her since she was a pullet. Anyway, when I looked her over the only injury was a bleed quill tip. I tried finger pressure for about 10 minutes but the bleeds restarted so I finally used styptic powder and compression which stopped the bleeding pretty quickly. She is one of the top hens and my hens don't peck each other But I cleaned her up and found one small raw area at the base of the quill that was bleeding but no other injuries under the blood. There was quite a bit of blood but most of it was well clotted so I think the quill will clot now that the blood flow has stopped.


My concern is her behavior. Since I have her I did do a full head to toe inspection and she looked normal. She can walk normally so there isn't any problem with her feet but she is still mostly walking slowly and close to the ground. I know that I shouldn't expect her to go back to normal immediately I had to let her back out since she was freaking out. I did feed her some warm eggs with a few drops of baby vitamins with iron first but I can't think of anything else to do for her.

That is the story. Here are the questions:

Is it possible that the two problems are not related?

How much blood loss is too much for a chicken?

Is there anything I can or should do next.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Yay Chicks!]

I'm not certain how much blood loss is too much, but I'll comment with regard to what I do know.

Molting can be pretty hard on some chickens. So, put the injury on top of that, and I'm not surprised that she may be feeling poorly.

Making new feathers requires protein. When mine molt, I switch them over to flock raiser for the extra protein. You can also feed them meat, meal worms etc, to increase their protein and help with new feather production.

Also, I have read others advise against giving iron supplements to chickens as normal doses for humans may be too high of a dose, and thus toxic, to birds.

Good luck.

 

[aggiemae]

Thanks. The amount of Iron I gave her was the 1/4 the dose of newborn infant. She's a pretty wild girls so I can't force water to replace blood volume so Iron seemed like the next best option.