Hen's Head Severely Pecked

[Mom2Daisy]

Sorry, no photos - although they would be pretty gross. One year old Buff is living amongst 2 RR and 3 mixed with dark feathers. Two roos and four hens in all. They all free range.

I had noticed she got the rough end of the breeding deal. This may have just been a coincidence that every time I looked out the roo was on her. I just asumed she was the Marilyn Monroe or Dolly Parton of the chicken world!

She kept a dark spot on her head. At first I thought it was just mud - it may have been to start with. Once her comb was bleeding as well. I separated her until it healed. Then put her back in with the others. Two days ago I noticed that she wouldn't come out from behind our trash bin (beside the back porch). We finally coaxed her out and half of her scalp has peeled back. I'm not sure if the others had pecked her or if another animal did it. It was pretty dirty. I'm not so sure we cleaned it well enough. But we did put blue kote on it and put her in her own cage. She's still laying in her personal little pile of hay and seems to be eating and drinking.

I've read about others putting duct tape over wounds but I'm not sure about it being her head. After we clean it out better tonight, I plan to use neosporin and see if it will lay down to heal with a small strip of duct tape.

Does this sound like it will work? Will I need to do anything else?

These are my first chickens and I'm really enjoying them. She is one of my favorites due to her sweet nature and big eggs.
Thanks in advance on all of your wonderful advice.

 

[SpottedCrow]

Poor Birdy!

It might've started with the roo and when the rest saw the blood, they might've helped things along...

I've never used the duct tape...but folks have said that it works.

 

[BrahmaMama]

I had the same thing with one of my sweet light Brahma pullets. They got her head good-the other hens I mean. She has finally healed in the ICU pen in our garage, but there is still a few feathers that have not grown back (I wonder if the follicle was too damaged) I took her out there the other day, while everyone was out in the run, and a couple of the other light brahma pullets, and the white rocks(mainly these naughty girls) went right back after her head

She's back in our garage....I'm hoping when everyone is out alot more when it warms up, I can try to reintroduce her again.

 

[hooligan]

We just recently had to bring Bob in bc Mina (one of our hens) had pecked him bald and bloody.
Here's what we did: Gave him a baby shampoo/betadine bath (50% baby shampoo 50% betadine mixed together) we did the whole body bc she also got his wing but you could do just the head if you wanted. After the drying we put a thin layer of neosporin (too much and it can harbor bacteria) on his head. We continued the neosporin for 4 days, once a day and his head healed. He has little feathers sticking out on his head now and soon his Fabio mane will be back

I haven't used blu-kote but I have heard that some others used it and it actually attracted bird to the spot even more bc it was a different color.

Good luck!

 

[chickenannie]

Those roos can be very damaging to a hen. I wouldn't suggest a ratio of less than 12-15 hens per roo, or the roo will literally bother the hens to death.

I had to get 10 roos butchered (from a flock of 25 BO, the rest were hens) because they were so harmful to the hens -- ripping their feathers out, tearing up their backs. So clumsy. Sometimes the roos would just stand on the hens backs and tear huge clumps of feathers out as they slid sideways off the hens backs. I wasn't into having them butchered, but this put me over the edge, and I knew I had to do something to protect those hens.

Now we have chicken soup every few weeks.

 

[hooligan]

We have 2 roos for 9 hens and have never had a problem with those two roos together but when we had a Turken and Sultan roo it was hell. We had to rehome them bc the two of them were fighting all the time.
We do have 4 "broiler" roos (rescues) that have a bachelor pad to themselves and it shares a fence and yard with the "other" chickens and we have no problems with them being together.