Help, head injury 8-9 week old chic

[mdfink]

I found this little guy in the coop this morning and am not sure if it will heal up or not. Any advice greatly appreciated! It was hatched by one of my hens at the first part of January so apx. 8-9 weeks.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Poor little guy. The good news is that this sort of wound actually heals very well. Isolate the bird in a place where you can provide supportive care - keeping the wound clean and monitoring for infection/treating if it develops, protecting it from further damage by other birds, keeping a good eye on feed/water intake and waste output. Being a young bird actually works further in your/his favor as at this stage their bodies are already in overdrive when it comes to tissue development and growth.

 

[athelsel]

how did this happen? poor thing!

 

[azygous]

Looks like a baby chick I had six years ago. She had stuck her head through the fencing and the rooster scalped her.

I wrote about how I treated it for BYC. It's linked below in my signature line.

Basically, I cleaned the wound twice a day to keep bacteria from colonizing the wound. I painted it with Blu-kote, let it dry, then put an antibiotic ointment on it, making sure the wound never was allowed to dry out.

The chick was allowed to rejoin her mates, and they pretty much left the wound alone since it was disguised with the Blu-kote.

Warning, if you allow the wound to dry out, healing will slow to a near stand-still and infection will then become a real danger. No need to try to bandage it, by the way. Just cleanse it twice a day. It's going to take a good six weeks or more for the wound to close. I rejoiced when my chick's wound had closed up so I could barely get a Q-tip in it. Then a toothpick, then one day, it was completely closed.