Chicken neck injury

[Mr_Bear]

Hello everybody,

Today when closing the chickens in for the day I did a random checkup on a couple of them. To my distress I found that one of my naked neck hens has a large wound on her neck.
It was not obvious to me that she had any injury, because her feathers were covering that spot, there was no blood and she did not show any signs of being unwell. From what I can tell she also ate and drank normally. They truly are masters at hiding their injuries.

What I did so far to try and treat her is:
- Cleaned the wound with Betadine
- Put an antibiotic cream in the wound
- Applied butterfly bandage stitch to try and close the wound a little bit
- Put a gauze over it and loosely secure it with a self adhesive elastic bandage

I'm considering giving her a bit of aspirin to ease her pain. I have not seen any active bleeding which I assume would be a bad time to use aspirin.

I'm keeping her indoors in a pet cage, but she seems to be off balance and she's slamming her butt against the cage (sort of backs herself against it quickly). She has not been off balance in the chicken run, so I'm guessing the bandage must affect her in some way. I think perhaps the quick change of environment makes her try to break out of the cage.

Is there anything I should do differently or better ?
Thanks !

 

[Eggcessive]

I would continue to use plain triple antibiotic ointment on the cut twice a day. If the wound needs cleaning, saline or 2% chlorhexidene is good to use. I would leave it open to air. It will eventually heal together. A wire crate covered at top, with food and water would be good to separate her. It might be good to keep her crate in with the other chickens so that she doesn’t lose her place in the flock. Do you think she cut it on something sharp around the coop or run, or something else happened.

 

[Mr_Bear]

I would continue to use plain triple antibiotic ointment on the cut twice a day. If the wound needs cleaning, saline or 2% chlorhexidene is good to use. I would leave it open to air. It will eventually heal together. A wire crate covered at top, with food and water would be good to separate her. It might be good to keep her crate in with the other chickens so that she doesn’t lose her place in the flock. Do you think she cut it on something sharp around the coop or run, or something else happened.

She has food inside the cage and access to water through the nipple drinker. I'm not sure what she cut herself on. I've moved them to a new self built coop few weeks ago. .

One thing I'm sure of is that the run and coop are predator proof so chances of it being some animal are very slim. It's possible there's something I haven't thought of or overlooked that they can injure themselves on. I will surely check thoroughly tomorrow to find the cause of the problem.

I checked on her 10 minutes ago and she was laying down in the usual sleeping position. I'm happy that she is taking her time to rest now.

What about aspirin ? Should I skip it ?