Cochin with a mysterious and huge open wound. What do we do?

[mountaingirl196]

One other thing - watch your birds for aggressive pecking behavior, following a victim bird around and pecking around the vent/rear end until she draws blood. Chances are one of your buffs is the leader in this. If she is back at it after you return your cochins to the coop, you'll want to cull her. It's not likely as you've probably caught this early enough, but cannibalism is contagious and brutal. Just keep eyes on.

 

[chrissynemetz]

How many chickens total do you have? And how big is your coop and run? Can you post pictures of your setup?

 

[Hortgirl]

How many chickens total do you have? And how big is your coop and run? Can you post pictures of your setup?

They did say 2 BO and 2 Cochin, so I guess 4.

 

[noelle_and_jj]

In case anyone stumbles upon this thread in the future, here's a quick update:

Our cochin is almost fully healed! We've had her in a medium sized dog crate since the incident, spraying her with vetericyn a couple times a day to ensure the wound doesn't get infected. We'll be re-introducing to the coop her in the next few days as soon as the obvious redness is gone.

It turned out that we had one bad bully who was really the perpetrator here. We kept her separated as much as possible for a few days, and routinely check in on the coop now to make sure that behavior doesn't start back up. We also built a new feeding system with twice as much space for the hens. We only have four hens, and the last system wasn't exactly small, but we wanted to take away anything that could've been cause for aggression. After all of this, they seem to be pretty peaceable now, so I think we were able to nip this problem in the bud for the most part.

Thanks everyone for your help!