We've usually had great luck introducing baby chicks to broody potential mommas, but today we had the broody hen attack the first chick we dropped in.
My wife managed to separate them and rescue the chick, but not before the hen did some damage. It's really hard to tell how serious, but best case we think she simply tore out a large batch of back feathers [almost all]. The skin looks red and raw... but we don't see any bleeding. Despite the lack of bleeding, it does look terrible... at first i thought the skin itself might be torn off but due to lack of bleeding I now doubt that.
We dripped Hibiclens all over the area and then gently rubbed a thick layer of antibiotic ointment over the area. Is there anything else we should do? Is their any pain relief we can give a baby chick?
Currently setting up the garage to raise them ourselves... we've done that before though were hoping to avoid it.
My wife managed to separate them and rescue the chick, but not before the hen did some damage. It's really hard to tell how serious, but best case we think she simply tore out a large batch of back feathers [almost all]. The skin looks red and raw... but we don't see any bleeding. Despite the lack of bleeding, it does look terrible... at first i thought the skin itself might be torn off but due to lack of bleeding I now doubt that.
We dripped Hibiclens all over the area and then gently rubbed a thick layer of antibiotic ointment over the area. Is there anything else we should do? Is their any pain relief we can give a baby chick?
Currently setting up the garage to raise them ourselves... we've done that before though were hoping to avoid it.
