Chicks Head Pecked! Please help!

[MercyMe03]

One of my polish chicks had a bunch of her head feathers plucked out and it appears they were pecking her after that. It was yesterday morning when I saw it. I had all of the chicks in a large dog crate. I have a 16x10 fully enclosed pen for them. I honestly think they were to crowded in the dog crate And she had no way to get away. Anyways, I seperated her yesterday and put the rest of the chicks in the pen. The other chicks are in chick heaven... The poor little one I have to seperate is so upset. She is in the crate in the garage. We cleaned her head and applied neosporin. Everything else about her is fine. Still eating and drinking normally. I bought some blu kote today. If I apply this to her head do I still need to keep her seperated from the other chicks? Even if I put all of them in the big pen? I feel bad for her, and I have also read about chicks not accepting them when you put them back. Any advice would be great! Thank you!

 

[CMV]

Blukote her head, trim any straggling feathers around her head and reintroduce her. Keep an eye on how things go, but now that her pouf is gone I am betting the others won't bother her. The pouffy headed birds tend to get scalped by their non-pouffed counterparts. Something to keep in mind for future flock management.

Good luck.

 

[MercyMe03]

Thank you so much! I have a few polish and this particular one seems to be the only one being picked on. I cleaned the area again and applied the blue kote. I made sure it dried really well and brought her out for a trial run. Everything was great until one of my sweetest chicks went after her. One I would have least imagined. She is one of my more flighty birds and she is safely in my lap now resting. Her sister is another polish I have and hasn't even attempted to mess with her. Do you think it would be ok if i put those 2 together in the dog kennel
For now so she won't be alone?

 

[Eggcessive]

I had the same thing happen 2 years ago. You have to keep the blu-kote on every couple of days. When the feathers grow back in, in about 3 weeks, they may do it again, so she needs to keep a purple head for awhile.

 

[MercyMe03]

I had a feeling she would be purple for a while. Since they picked on her so badly in a very short amount of time, with me sitting there, I decided to seperate her completely again for the night. I will give it a day or 2 and maybe try it again. I just don't think it's fair to leave her in that situation. She wasn't all that sure about it at first, but she is now loving the personal attention. This evening she just sat on my shoulder and we watched the other chicks play then she stayed up there while I walked around and did some things around the yard. Once yours got all he feathers back did they leave her alone?

 

[Eggcessive]

They pulled them out again, but they finally grew in and stayed. Every once in awhile, someone would peck her again, but it never got that bad again. I had two of them alike, and i tried a couple of times to trim their feather around their eyes because they really have a hard time seeing anything unless it is on the ground. They are forever under your feet because they can see you until you are next to them. Un fortunately the one whose head was pecked recently was taken by a predator at 2 years of age--we think a hawk got her.

 

[MercyMe03]

Oh. I'm sorry. That's never a good thing to hear. I know it's true for me, the more you have to baby them and take care of them the more attached you become. Thank you again for the advice. I'll have her better in no time.

 

[basementgal]

Hi! I'm new here (like many others). I have one polish that turned out to be a rooster, and 6 (we think) hens of other species. I just noticed today that the polish has some of his head feathers broken off and it looks red like blood. There is no blood on the head, only the ends of the feathers.

2 questions. Where do you get the blue kote and what is it? An anitbiotic of some kind?

The other suggestion is to trim the head feathers. Since the plucked feathers look red with blood, do I only trim a little? If I trim too much, will the feather bleed?

This is my first attempt at raising chickens and they range from about 2 months to 3 months of age.

Any info will be helpful. Thanks!!

 

[MercyMe03]

I got the blue kote at the feed store. I'm sure tractor supply will have it also. It's for horses and larger animals so it won't be with the chicken stuff. I don't know about the trimming part. Most of my chicks feathers are still little.

Update on my chick......
She was doin fantastic last night. I checked on her this Mornin and not so much. I thought maybe she was cold so I put the heat lamp in one corner for her. When I came back to check on her later she almost seemed worse than before. Very lethargic, she won't open one eye (I cleaned the eye just in case) she started to open it a little. She doesn't want to walk
Around much and her feathers are poofed out and she just wants to sleep. She is in a quiet place with the light on part her space so she won't get to hot. Is this something I should expect from the incident? Is there something else I can or should be doing? I feel helpless for her right now.

 

[ittybit]

The neosporin doesn't have pain killer in it, that is toxic to chickens I think I read that on here somewhere. Hope she gets better.