comb wound

[NicVilla]

My husband came home to one of our chickens with a bloody head and what looks to be a chunk out of her comb. He removed her from the run, cleaned her off with a warm cloth and flushed the area with hydrogen peroxide (as best he could given the dried blood-feather-dirt crust). When I got home, he ran to the store to pick up some EMT gel. While he was out, I sat with her in the yard and she was the same old Blanche: digging in the flower beds, sprinting to the shed for meal worms, etc. She acted absolutely fine, but she was still bleeding. As an aside, I had no idea chickens could bleed as much as she did. When he got back, we put the gel on the areas that were still bleeding, and started setting up the isolation pen in the garage (during which time, she tried to go back into the run with the others- no hard feelings, I guess). Right now, she's in the pen in the garage with a light for added heat since she doesn't have the others to keep her warm. And she's still bleeding six hours later (though not a lot). What else should I do for her?

 

[Judy]

Yoiu csan use flour or corn meal or a styptic pencil to help stop bleeding. There is usually a product in the feed store for this as well. You will probably also have to apply pressure for several minutes to get it stopped. Once it's stopped, some BluKote to mask the dry blood might be a good idea, to prevent the others attacking the wound (lots of times this works; sometimes it doesn't.)