Head injury on hen

[MeganAlyssa]

Hey,

Yesterday I came home from work and noticed that my orpington was bleeding pretty bad. She was pecked pretty severely by her sisters and is missing a chunk of skin on the back of her head and they plucked all the feathers off her back and it is totally exposed, irritated skin. I took her out of the coop and took her inside and put her in my spare room in a dog crate. I was looking up how to treat an injured chicken and found that you should keep the wound moist and bandaged. Which now I'm finding conflicting articles and my nerves are shot. Yesterday I cleaned her wound with vetericyn plus poultry care, put triple antibiotic ointment(no pain relief) on it and bandaged it while I went to get more first aid supplies. I read that terramycin is good for chicken wounds and also got wound powder for farm animals to coagulate any blood that I might have overlooked. I got home, cleaned her wound with vetericyn again and put the wound powder on it and left it uncovered overnight. This morning it was looking pretty good, very slightly oozy around the edge of the wound but other than that it looked good. I put more neosporin on it and bandaged it today. I got her to eat some too. She looked more alert today which gave me some hope. I cleaned and changed her dressing again before putting her to bed for the night. It was moist still because I had the ointment on it but it still looked good to me. It was dark and I was reading that that means it is starting to heal? Is that correct? I checked on her before I went to bed and she was fine but half asleep cause I woke her up any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is my first major injury and I want to do everything in my power to help her.

 

[micstrachan]

It sounds like you’re doing a great job. I’m not sure about a dressing. Can you post a photo?

 

[micstrachan]

Also, it will be important to try to figure out why this happened. Can you share some flock details? Age(s), how many, coop & run details, diet details? Sometimes, but not always, behavior can be improved by sorting out their living areangements.

 

[MeganAlyssa]

Also, it will be important to try to figure out why this happened. Can you share some flock details? Age(s), how many, coop & run details, diet details? Sometimes, but not always, behavior can be improved by sorting out their living areangements.

The injured hen and one other hen are just over 2 years old. They are an orpington and barred rock. There are 6 more that are just over a year. 3 of them are Rhode island reds and the other 3 are amerucanas. They've been living together since may of this year and they all merged fine with no major issues at all. The orpington is in the final stages of molt currently and I'm not sure if that's why they attacked her? I'm not even sure which one(s) are responsible but I kind of have an idea. I think it might have been the Rhode islands, they seem to act a little more aggressive. They eat regular layer feed crumble and I give them apple cider vinegar a couple times a month. They get treats every once in a while also. I have coyotes around my area so I do keep them in an enclosed run with a roof and attached coop. My husband is building a new upgraded one for them to move into. I can post pictures of her when I get home. I don't have one without her wound wrapped up. The bandage I am just using gauze pads, the nonstick kind.