Hen injured by rooster mounting, what to do?

[HeartSongFarm]

I have an 8 month old hen that has been severly hurt by our roosters mounting her. They have raked down both her sides under her wings. I didn't notice it because her wings hide it and when her back feathers started falling out I examined her and found old wounds covered with thick black scabs. Some of her back is featherless and hard but intact. It's clean, no bugs or anything or green/yucky. She keeps worrying it and reopening it though so some is open wound now. I've been checking her every day since I noticed it Monday still the same really.

She is still eating/drinking/laying/foraging free range on 10 acres, I give them snacks, she's still walking, using her wings etc. So a few days ago when I noticed it I let her be. Four days ago we got a white egg and I thought we had a new layer out of our new additions but realized it's her eggs changing from nice consistent large light cream colored to white, thin shelled. I can tell the difference from the eggs just last week to these new ones in feel alone. She's still laying white eggs and tonight I found one on the back porch stairs (extremely odd place for her to lay) and when I went to pick it up it melted in my hand.

I wasn't too worried when she was still laying but now that her eggs are changing so dramatically I'm very worried she's infected or something. The two roosters will be gone by the weekend and we don't plan on getting any ever again this being our 5th attempt at having roos and having consistent problems.

Oh, and she is having runnier poos but her vent and backside are clean. Is this just normal injury behaivor. In 8 months of owning chickens we haven't had any injuries at all except a roo getting killed by a neighbors dog and that was over within 2 hours of the attack so I'm unsure how to proceed.

I considered bringing her inside but she's still so active and otherwise seems healthy I'm not sure what it would do for her.

 

[Miyashi]

I would bring her inside. Baby the crap out of her. Give her a good bath and some time to heal up.
If you have the time and patience it can be well worth it, if the roo's will be gone, just keep her in the house until then?
I dunno, just sounds like the best route to me.
I hope she snaps out of it! Poor girl!
<3 Best of luck

 

[HeartSongFarm]

She layed another egg today, firm shell but still a bit thin actually in the coop this time so maybe last nights was a fluke.

 

[MyHappyHen]

I find Provodone-Iodine to be my most valuable first aid item. The combo makes it less acidic then Iodine by itself which can damage skin.

You can pour that on the wounds.
If you need to keep her from picking at them I would use a little super glue to hold the bandage on.

I once literally super glued (because there was not enough skin left to sew her up) a half eaten hen back together and she lived.
It was horrific and when I caught the dog eating her she was dead but came with minimal CPR. Had I seen how badly she was injured I would not have brought her back.

No major organs were eaten just skin and muscle, a broken leg, her back bone even exposed and I had to put some of her innards back in.
I used Provodone-Iodine to disinfect everything first. Dumped it right into her open body, then used a little water to rinse it out.

I was even surprised she made it through the night and after 24 hours took her to the vet to get antibiotics and pain meds.
They did nothing for her but within a week she started laying again.

A large dog kennel with hay makes an excellent indoor hospital environment.

My hen wanted to go out long before she was fully healed so I put Bronco fly spray on her to keep bugs from being tempted.
I used super glue to hold the bandages on, glued it to the feathers - just a little does the trick.


Thin egg shells: Adding a separate container with Oyster shell sold at all feed shops will assure your hens lay hard shelled eggs.
I keep it available at all times they seem to know how much to eat, it lasts a long time. This can also be a solution for hens that eat their own eggs, sometimes they are trying to get extra needed calcium.

Here is a pic of Sulty...once half eaten but now whole again.

 

[TeamChaos]

I had one of my girls get gashed by a rooster spur and it scabbed over pretty quickly. I cleaned it up of any loose skin/blood/feathers and sprayed it with vetricyn and blu kote. If you choose not to bring her in (my girl was too panicked when separated from flock), be sure you don't let the other chickens peck at it or let flies get in there to lay eggs. My chickens free range also, so I chose not to bandage it for fear she'd be too visible to a predator, get the bandage filthy or get stuck on something. Best of luck to you and your girls!

 

[HeartSongFarm]

I checked her again today and her wings pretty much cover all the damage which I think is helping it stay dry and un-buggy. I fed her some watermellon and fish today hoping that the boost in water/protein would help her just incase she's not getting to the food as fast as the other chickens. Tomorrow I have a cucumber for her. She's running all over the place outside still. I haven't been able to find that blu kote stuff yet (my feed store local is really small, have to travel to the next town to get it). I have hydrogen peroxide and witch hazel in the house and that's about it. I also have a vetrap bandage I could use on her that is close to her feather color. (well, dark green on a red/brown chicken).

Any idea what I should do with her eggs? Are they okay to eat or shoudl I just dispose of them till she's better.

 

[HeartSongFarm]

It's been a week and still not better/worse so I got some of that Blu Kote today from TS. Hubby just got home so I'm going to see if he can help me hold her so I can apply it since it's all under her wings. Seems 4 hands would be better than 2 in this. Shoudl I clean it first or anything?