Chick with bald spot

[Brightbird]

My only chick now has a bald spot on his back. It isn’t bleeding but the feathers appear to have been plucked.
This photo was from yesterday, but it has since gotten bigger. I attempted to take a newer photo but the chick was hiding under it’s mom.

A few things to mention since it may be important, as well as questions I have:

1. The chick does not appear to be bleeding, even after the bald spot got bigger.

2. We currently have it and the mom in a store basket that is pretty small. Our local feed store has some big dog crates that I am planning to get, but unfortunately they are closed today. I’ll be heading up there tomorrow as soon as it opens. Is it possible that the small size is what is causing this?

3. There are two other broody hens around the mom and chick. I had initially attempted to remove the basket from the broodies but the mom left to go back there, and would not return to her chick until I put the basket back where it was.

4. There appears to be a specific broody hen who is very bothersome to the mom and chick, the other one generally keeps to herself. She eats the babies food and generally keeps upsetting the mom. She also was aggressive to the chick in the past when the mom tried to move her chick too close to the broody’s nest. That’s why we put them in the basket temporarily, to put a bit more of a barrier between them and the other broodies until we get a better place to put them. This broody hen is no longer sitting on any eggs, as all of the eggs underneath her were old and infertile and were removed, but she still occasionally sits on her empty nest. It’s too late in her brooding cycle to give her new real eggs because I’m worried she could stop going broody before the eggs hatch, would giving her some wooden eggs make her stop bothering the mom and chick or would it not change a thing? Should I just break her out of her broodiness?

4. My father has repeatedly said that I can bring the chick inside by itself, but he won’t allow me to bring the mom with it. If things get worse, can I bring the chick in overnight without the mom abandoning it, or will she give up on taking care of it? On a related note, I do not know where my heat lamp is at the moment, it’s 75 degrees right now but will quickly rise to the 90s by 11 am, before dropping back down to the 80s at 8 pm. Would I have to find the heat lamp to keep the chick warm overnight or would they be okay? My dad seems positive that it wouldn’t need it but I’m not too sure. I believe the chick is a little less than a week old.

 

[Brightbird]

I was able to get a picture from today, and possibly some bad news.

Again the chick does not appear to be bleeding. But on to the bad news. While I was out there, the mom appeared to be pecking a lot on the chicks head. She also is no longer showing the chick where the food and water is. She still sits in the basket and more or less acts broody, but she isn’t being very motherly anymore. Is it stress from the broody hen bothering her? Will she return to normal once they’re in the dog crate, safe from the others, or has she pretty much abandoned her only chick?

 

[Brightbird]

Another update, and more bad news. The mother pecked the bald spot until it bled. I’ve now removed the chick from the hen, putting it under a heat lamp inside. It’s still eating and drinking but every so often it will be quiet and start closing it’s eyes. I don’t know how long it’ll last, or if there is anything else I can do, but I hope it’ll be okay. The mother hen began to panic when I removed the chick as if it still wanted to care for it, but I don’t trust her with it anymore, not after she drew blood.

I think it’s also important to note that she was a great mother up until the chick had a fall. It wasn’t that big of a fall and it seemed to be okay, but after that the mom was less motherly to it, and as we can see eventually rejected it all together. It’s possible the mother knew of some internal issue with the poor thing, but I’ll just have to wait and see.