Injury on bird's head (made by other bird?)

[Razz Gavin]

I went out to let my peacock loose and found out he had this huge wound on the top of his head. I can't imagine one of my roosters being bold enough to take him on (I keep the chickens and peafowl together) and I find it hard to believe it was a rat. He's was locked up in the run with the rest of the birds and no wild animals have ever gotten in there besides rats but they've never bothered my birds, they only want their feed so I can't figure out how he could have gotten this wound.

In case the pictures are a little difficult, he's missing at least a 5 cm chunk of skin.



It isn't fresh, it looks to be about 5 days old, and I found a few mites on it. I tried checking the rest of his body for mites but in all the places I could actually see his skin I didn't see any other mites (this is my first time with peafowl and it was a lot more difficult to get under his feathers than with any chicken or turkey).

Could a rooster do this much damage from a single bite? The current leader of the chicken flock is a silver phoenix. He's a tyrant towards the other roosters but I've never seen think once about trying to take on the peacock and he's not very strong.

 

[zazouse]

What kind of top do you have on your run and coup?
Looks like he will be fine, i have seen some real bad wounds in my day, had a gosling get attracted by a rooster pealed the skin clean off his neck for about 4 inches, he was a real naked neck goose for a while.
This is him now 5 years old

 

[MinxFox]

Make sure you don't have any holes in your pen. I have had raccoons kill peafowl before, and they go for the head. In fact, I think they mainly just want to eat the brains and then they chew a bit on the rest of the bird, but it really is just the head that they seem to want. I don't want to scare you nor am I saying that this was done by a raccoon, but it just reminds me of every bird I lost to a raccoon either had the whole head gone, or something done to the head. It is possible he got away...I have a peacock that got bite marks from a raccoon on his neck and it healed.

It could just be what Zaz is getting at. I don't think a rooster would be able to do that to a peacock, but then again I don't have chicken experience.

 

[Razz Gavin]

I'm not too worried about his health because I've seen how hardy barnyard fowl can be. I had a Rhode Island Red who had her side completely ripped open by the spurs of a mating rooster. It healed up without any problems and she was still the healthiest bird I'd ever owned. I'll just have to monitor the flock a little closer and make sure someone in it isn't picking up a grumpy attitude towards the other birds or being bothered by the rats (although it must've been a very large and crazy rat to have been able to do something like this)

 

[Ellaluvsbirds]

Maybe he bumped his head on the top of the pen?? That would be my guess, I have had something like this happen to some of my other birds.

 

[zazouse]

That is what i am thinking , it looks like the shape of chicken wire

if a roo did it the crest would most likely be gone plus their beaks are not shaped like that wound.

 

[Razz Gavin]

Something must've spooked him then so he jumped and got caught somewhere. I'm going to go through the run and make sure there's nowhere that anyone's head could get caught. The run is rather low and that'd be extremely dangerous for the rest of the flock if there's spots that can completely rip into the birds.

 

[zazouse]