Chicken attacked by the other chickens

[shasimon96]

We came home and found our girl, Carmel, laying in the corner under our coop. We've brought her into our garage in a seperate area. She can only put weight on one foot and they split her open pretty bad. Here's some pics, we don't know what to do

 

[shasimon96]

Sorry that it's such a bad pic, it's just really dark out

 

[shasimon96]

She's eating and drinking like normal...moved around a bit this morning. We sprayed some peroxide on her wound last night (diluted, 10:1 water to peroxide). Do we just clean it out some more today and keep her seperate until it heals? Poor girl

 

[shasimon96]

Okay, it's still pretty gross, but here's some updated pics...she acts pretty normal, it just looks terrible

The previous missing feathers are a combo of her molting (she's just over a year now), and a chicken saddle (bad idea)...

 

[Jeepgirl]

Hi there! How is your hen doing? My hen looks JUST like yours -- same hole, bald back, etc.! Please, someone help!

Mine is still not out of the woods. She has two HUGE black scabs under her wings, and her fluffy feathers look like they're falling out in clumps. Her back is completely bald, but you would never know she has these big open wounds unless you picked her up and looked under her wing.

I hand feed her, and after that, she gets up and pecks around the yard, drinks water, etc. and is pretty active. But if I didn't make her leave the roost, she'd stay up there all day. I've been putting Neosporin on her wound because I had no idea what else to do, and I've been without internet until today, so I wasn't able to check this forum. Any better suggestions for this wound? What to feed her to make her better?

I'm looking for suggestions to avoid this in the future. My hens have a pecking problem, and have always had this problem. They're about 2 years old, but this particular hen gets the brunt of it. I've started letting them free range all day while I'm at work, but I have mountain lions, fox, bears, coyotes, and hawks/eagles in my neighborhood, so I'm kind of tempting fate . . . anything different I can do with diet? Do you think it's something else that causes this?

Thanks!

 

[ten chicks]

Yes,keep her separate until wound heals,otherwise other chickens will continue to peck at her. Also you had mentioned a chicken saddle,do you have roosters? If so how many? Was it a rooster or hen that ripped her back up? Ratio rooster to hen is 12-13 hens per rooster. Otherwise the rooster will continue to over mate with the hens,wears them out.

 

[ten chicks]

Try removing the "bullies" to another pen, for couple of days to reestablish the pecking order. When they are reintroduced to the flock,pecking order should change.

 

[shasimon96]

Our hen acts normal, she's just got the huge wound. She goes out in the tractor (alone) during the day, and stays in the garage in our pallet-coop-chicken-hospital-hotel.

She still lays an egg every day, eats and drinks like normal and everything. I think it helps that we found her not too long after it had happened (not sure how long it had been).
Yes, we do have a Red in there with them. It's only a 4-1 ratio, it used to be 5-1 but we had a possum attack...

I have read that 5 or 6 is a minimum though, so we may have to get another...
We made the mistake of putting the saddle on Carmel during her molt, so no air ever got back on her back and she was just bald. Oops, poor girl is growing her feathers back now though.
Our guess is that Red accidentally cut her with his spurs, and then since she's lowest pecking order the others just pecking and pulled at the cut. We found her laying in the corner of the run trying to stay away from every one.