HELP with injury

[txhippychick]

came home to our first chicken emergency tonight. Background-the original flock of chicks born in mid-February consists of 2 Rhode Island reds, 1 golden laced Wyandotte and 3 buff orpingtons. 3 weeks after we got the first chicks, we bought 2 Brahma's. They are approx 3 weeks younger. Kept them in same run with full divider for 3 weeks. For the past 2 weeks, they have shared coop together. This weekend, we removed the divider and they were fine until sometime after lunch today. The divider was made out of chicken wire.

We used Peck-No-More in the beginning with very little success. Now I have quarantined Ethel and put a salve on her wound.

We are new to chickens and I'm ready to scream. If I can nurse Ethel back to health, do I dare try to re-introduce her to the flock? If so, how? They seem to not be bothering Lucy, but should I remove her just to be safe? Any suggestions/thoughts/ideas/prayers are greatly appreciated.

 

[Mrs Howey]

If Lucy is fine and the others aren't picking on her I would leave her in the flock. There are a couple tutorials on youtube on how to reintroduce a chicken back to the flock. I'm going to have to reintroduce my sultan when he gets all healed up. The method i plan on using is to take all the aggressive chickens out of the flock and leave my sultan out with the chickens that are ok with him. Then I'll put the aggressive chickens back one by one till they are all one flock again (over a series of a couple days and close supervision). If you notice future picking in that area of the chicken and skin is showing;chicken aprons/saddles work great at protecting that area. Chickens will pick at bare skin over and over again and when blood is drawn the picking nust gets worse.

 

[txhippychick]

Thank you