Hen bleeding from comb

[WindyCity]

This morning, my RIR looked like she'd been in a boxing match. She had active bleeding on her comb & was shaking her head so there was dried blood everywhere. One of the other hens kept trying to peck at the blood. I brought my RIR inside the house & cleaned her up. I found two wounds on her comb where the bleeding was coming from. They are both at the base of her comb near her head/feathers. She has had frostbite in that area for a while now, and last night was a doozy of a cold one (down to 0 degrees outside with winds 20-30 mph, so the coop was pretty closed up & it managed to stay at about 11 degrees in the coop).

Two nights ago, I found bright red blood spots on my poop boards & the night before that there was some nasty pecking going on at bedtime. I didn't know who was injured, but now I'm pretty sure that was my RIR.

So I have two questions:

1) What should I put on the wounds? All I have in the house right now is Vetericyn Wound & Skin Care spray, so after cleaning up the wound I applied it. Is that ok? And if so, should I just spray that on twice a day until healed? Since Red is now in a sick bay in my basement, she is not stressed & there is no active bleeding because she isn't shaking her head too much. But she's very, very lonely.

2) Does she need to stay in confinement in my basement? If so, for how long? The high temp today is 12 degrees & the low is 7....we will be in teens or single digits for the next five days. There is not really enough room in my coop area to put her in with the others at night in a dog cage, but I could probably get a smaller cage & manage it. And I could keep her separated in the large run area during the day. My worry about this plan that is that the frostbite may get worse. Yet I worry about keeping her isolated for too long (I only have 5 hens in my flock).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!!!

 

[PunkinPeep]

I'm not familiar with the Vetericyn product you're using. Does it color the wound in any way?

Basically, if the only reason the other hen is pecking at your girl is because she's attracted to the red wound, then if you are able to cover it with something like blu-kote, then i see no reason why you couldn't put her back in the coop right away.

I don't like keeping wounded chickens out of the population any longer than necessary, especially if they are already having some pecking order "issues." The longer that a hen is out of the population, the more difficult it is for her to re-assimilate.

But definitely make sure that wound is no longer attracting attention.

 

[WindyCity]

Thanks for the reply, PunkinPeep. I also got worried about keeping her away from the rest of the flock too long, not only because of the recent flock dynamics but also because of the weather challenges. Keeping her in my basement at about 50 degrees when she's used to sleeping at 18 degrees would make it tough to reassimilate her during the terrible weather we have coming. I just read a projected low of -8 on Wednesday night, accompanied by nasty winds. It's going to be another long week.

This is the product I was talking about: http://www.amazon.com/Vetericyn-Wou...421681270&sr=1-1&keywords=vetericyn+vf+spray#

I ended up cleaning Red's dried blood first thing in the morning & applying this spray, then I spent the rest of the day debating what to do. Ultimately, I put some Neosporin over the wound & put her back outside one hour before bedtime. Unfortunately, I cleaned off all the DRIED blood from her comb & feathers, but I left the scabs over the active wounds in place. I was worried that I would cause re-bleeding if I removed them. It didn't even occur to me that the chickens would be looking for the scabs to peck at

All I can do now is to see what tomorrow brings. To make things worse, my coop does not allow me access to the girls when they roost at night & I have the hardest time catching this hen (and all the others, too!) during the day. This one doesn't squat for me when I walk by either (all the others think I'm a rooster & still squat for a quick pat on the back). The only potential time to catch her would be when she's in the nest box laying an egg...and that just doesn't seem right. They really are happy hens overall & I typically get 5 eggs every day despite this weather! We've never had a five-day stretch of it like the one coming, though, so I have no idea what to expect. Hopefully, they will be ok. And I really hope they don't peck Red again.

 

[PunkinPeep]

Hoping with you. Y'all stay warm and stay inside!