Does anyone know what’s wrong with my hen?

[Kingroxim]

It's impossible to tell much from your photos. We need our other senses besides a two dimensional photo to examine this lesion to get any useful information. So you are going to have to do that for us.

Have a large bath towel ready. Have some hot compresses handy (little rags and a bowl of hot soapy water). Grab your hen and wrap her securely in the towel like a breakfast burrito so her wings and feet are confined. This will relax her as well as immobilize her.

Next, apply the hot compresses, changing them when one gets cool. Be sure it doesn't burn your hand so it doesn't burn the ear lobe. Once the lesion is softened, try scraping the black part off. This is called "debriding the wound". If it's an injury, there will be bacteria under the scab that has to be cleaned out.

If the black is not a scab, you will discover that. It will then tell us this is likely cancer and will not heal no matter what you do. If the scab comes off, clean it well and apply Neosporin or other wound ointment. Keep the ointment applied for the nest few weeks to see if it heals. After a couple of weeks, if the lesion doesn't improve, then we will assume it's a skin cancer. A vet might be able to cut it out, so you might want to be thinking about finding a vet that sees chickens.

My observation is that the white may be dying tissue, turning white because it's lost its blood supply. The black part may be either a scab or necrotic tissue. Whether it's cancer or not, the black must be removed by you if it's a wound scab or by a vet if it's cancer.

Okay, so update with this. I attempted to do this, but she made it difficult. She has always been very dramatic and hates being handled by anyone. I had her wrapped, but probably not tight/secure enough out of fear that I might accidentally hurt her somehow. I don’t think I was able to really soften it at all (that is, if it CAN be “softened”) because she kept squirming her head away. She also kept squawking like I was torturing her! I’m not sure if that’s because it hurt or if it’s just because she’s dramatic, but after a while I decided to call it for the night because it wasn’t going well and she was obviously stressed out.

Upon getting a closer look though, I’m thinking it’s not a scab unfortunately. While I’m still not 100% certain, I can definitely see her earlobe(?) looks swollen, like there’s something in there. But I also didn’t see anything else that seemed off about the other side, and like I said before, she’s also not particularly acting any different from normal still. I’m going to continue keeping an eye on her and attempting to see if it IS a scab or not. Here’s hoping she’ll cooperate a little bit better?

 

[AidKD]

Okay, so update with this. I attempted to do this, but she made it difficult. She has always been very dramatic and hates being handled by anyone. I had her wrapped, but probably not tight/secure enough out of fear that I might accidentally hurt her somehow. I don’t think I was able to really soften it at all (that is, if it CAN be “softened”) because she kept squirming her head away. She also kept squawking like I was torturing her! I’m not sure if that’s because it hurt or if it’s just because she’s dramatic, but after a while I decided to call it for the night because it wasn’t going well and she was obviously stressed out.

Upon getting a closer look though, I’m thinking it’s not a scab unfortunately. While I’m still not 100% certain, I can definitely see her earlobe(?) looks swollen, like there’s something in there. But I also didn’t see anything else that seemed off about the other side, and like I said before, she’s also not particularly acting any different from normal still. I’m going to continue keeping an eye on her and attempting to see if it IS a scab or not. Here’s hoping she’ll cooperate a little bit better?

Check inside her ear very closely and get an up close picture if you can. It kinda sounds like she has some type of ear infection.

 

[azygous]

Some chickens can be such terrible patients, we sometimes can be tempted to walk away. To be fair to your hen, any time you need to mess with something near their eyes, it can really upset them. When I am putting pinless peepers on a chicken, I bring the towel flap over the eyes and old it there so they can't see what I'm doing, and that seems to work. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be so easy to do since the ear is so close to the eye. But maybe if you think hard, you can figure out something.

 

[Kingroxim]

One more update. My sweet girl is doing super well! She’s starting to look better already. The swelling looks to have gone down pretty significantly, and from what I can tell, she looks healthy. She got lots of treats for being sooo brave. Thanks again!

 

[AidKD]

One more update. My sweet girl is doing super well! She’s starting to look better already. The swelling looks to have gone down pretty significantly, and from what I can tell, she looks healthy. She got lots of treats for being sooo brave. Thanks again!

That's awsome! I'm so glad! What did you find it to be?

 

[Kingroxim]

That's awsome! I'm so glad! What did you find it to be?

I’m still not quite 100% sure what EXACTLY it was (or what it was from, especially since it seemed to show up so suddenly) but it definitely didn’t seem like an ear infection (no waxy substance, her appearance and movements were still normal) or cancer since it didn’t require any particular special treatment other than what was suggested. The spot IS still just a little bit funky, but it’s much more manageable and much less noticeable. I will continue to keep an eye on her and do whatever is necessary to make sure she continues to stay healthy. I’m very glad she looks like she will make a full recovery in time!