Favorelle Roo's Comb, Frostbitten, Now Has Blood On Hackle Feathers!

[ladychicken&Ducklover]

Hi friends,

I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where it gets deadly cold , and last night our temps were -10 degrees F...

This morning, , I found his comb having black tips and now some blood on his hackle feathers !!

This is my first year having chickens and ducks.

Now, my SF roo lives with his hen in an 8x8x6 insulated coop , ( I used R-13 JM insulation from Lowes ), that I Personally built myself by looking at other coops on BYC.

I couldnt even build a box in the beginning of the summer, but by the end, I built his/hers..

I have 2 inches of wood chips on the floor, they even have a dog crate inside the coop with straw inside for them to go inside and "cuddle" if they want.

I have the classic slanted roof and plenty of ventilation.

I also have part of the open roof, wrapped with 3 mil plastic., there are (2) 250 Watt heat lamps, which are red and they stay on ALL night too since ALL my chickens and ducks are used to going to bed with the red lamp.

Anyway, I have all my other birds, ducks, in another 12x20 coop with the same set up, and no other problems, and I even have a Polish Roo.

I wanted to give you all the background of my set up AND I need advice on what to do about his comb !!

Ive heard ...now.. that putting Vaseline on his comb to prevent frostbite..

What do I do about the damage already done???

I was thinking putting Antibiotic ointment on, now...

HELP...

I look forward to desperately needed advice..

 

[SassyKat6181]

I had a few hens with frostbite on their combs last winter. I have a barn and 2 of the 30 stalls are for the chickens, so I know they have plenty of ventilation. I put vaseline on their combs when it got really cold. The black tips fell off and healed just fine once the cold weather was over.

 

[flowerchild59]

If you birds continue to have problems with frozen combs you might want to look into the more cold hardy birds like buckeyes or chanteclers. There is alot of information on here regarding cold weather and hardiness and combs.