Help (injured quail, possibly graphic photos)

Melody102

In the Brooder
Apr 27, 2020
20
26
49
Ontario, Canada
Hello,
I need some help with what to do with my quail. She had a head injury and had half her scalp pecked off. It was hanging on barely as a flap and I cleaned her up and gave her a bandaid hat to keep it clean and everything in place. I expected that as she healed it would re-attach (I had carefully pressed it back into place). Well now two weeks later, she’s sassy as ever and her bandaid has completely come off, nice fresh skin and pin feathers... except she still has a skin flap and I can see her skull? Brain? Some sort of circulatory system still exposed. What can I do?
 

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Ok thank you! Do you think I could put her back in the coop with the other ladies or wait till the flap maybe falls off?

I suspect that it will dry up and fall off on its own. If you want, you could try trimming it off, but it looks clean and healing well, so I would leave it alone. Keep an eye on it, but you probably don't need to worry about it unless it starts to get infected.
 
I'd spritz it with blu-kote in any color available EXCEPT red, making sure to protect her eyes & beak from the over-spray. I recommend a light dish cloth, like a handi-wipe or in a pinch a paper towel for this job as it will most assuredly be stained forever afterward. Once the spray has dried, I'd put her back in with her mates and check in on her regularly to make sure the wound hasn't reopened. Chickens and quail have a pecking order that must be maintained or reasserted. If she's out of sight, out of mind for too long, she comes back into the mix on the bottom rung of the pecking order.
 
1. It should heal up no problem and the dead skin fall off.

2. DO NOT put her back in with the other quails until she has completely healed and feathers grown back over her head.

My Tips:

Place her in a cage on her own BUT place this cage inside the enclosure where the other quails are so they can see her and she will not loose her place in the pecking order. Put food and water in her cage of course.

If you put her back in to mingle freely with the others they will pick at the flap of skin and the new spikey growing feathers and make her injury worse.

Like other posters have said, they heal really well from some horrific looking scalping. Years ago I had a group of quails they suddenly started fighting each other for no apparent reason after being together a long time. Some were very badly injured with their skulls showing and eyes sealed closed with blood. They all recovered fully to the extent that you would never notice they had been injured.
 

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