Bloody spot neat chicken's tail

[herbsherbsflowers]

This morning I noticed that the smallest of my chickens, probably around 16 to 20 weeks old, had a bloody spot near her tail and that the others in my mixed flock were very curious about it. She has not started laying yet. Only 2 in this group of 8 have; they are a few weeks older than this one. We got her out and put her in a separate dog crate to keep them from picking at her. She seems ok mostly, a little upset at being moved but she's eating and does not seem to be in any distress. I looked and could not find the source of the blood. It is at the top of her rump where the tail feather stick up. I smeared the whole area with neosporin. How long should I keep her separated. She had not been the obvious bottom of the pecking order before this, in fact seemed to be smarter than the bigger ones.

 

[Judy]

You can put her back as soon as there's no visible blood. Look around for a broken feather shaft as the source of the blood.

 

[herbsherbsflowers]

I will try to wash everything off tomorrow morning. It is not bright red anymore, kind of brown like the splotches she has anyway. I think we will put her back tomorrow. There is a feather in her tail or maybe more than one that is gone. That is probably what happened. We were in the pen this morning adding pine shavings to the coop. They were all kind of flying around and acting goofy like chickens, and she may have gotten a feather caught in the fence or something and it broke.

Carol