Large wound on my favorite hen

[wodetonfarmer]

Hey guys, I'm a relative newbie to keeping chickens. I noticed over the last few weeks my 1 yr old Buff Orpington losing a lot of feathers on her back. I assumed she was either molting or it was from our roosters cuz everyone else seemed fine. But today she flapped her wings and I saw so something dark under her left wing. When I took a closer look I found a large wound that looks like it's been there a while! And there were mites or lice crawling all over it! What should I do?!

 

[Judy]

Bring her indoors, clean it, put Neosporin or the like on it, and keep her indoors til healed. Don't use an ointment with a "caine" ddrug like cetacaine or benzocaine. You may be able to get her back outside before it's fully healed, but it will need protection from flies laying their eggs in it -- there is a med for horses that does this; called No Strike, maybe? Also, the others will have to leave it alone, and theis may not be possible unless she is isolated.

I can't find the bugs in that pic, but if they are maggots (fly larvae,) it may be very difficult to heal the wound, and it will be necessary to get them all out of it.

She may need a saddle when she returns to the flock, for protection:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/patterns-chicken-saddles

 

[wodetonfarmer]

Thanks, I brought her in and cleaned it- I got almost all of the black stuff off and down to pink skin. Put Bacitracin on it. She was such a nice girl about it, I was amazed! The bugs are definitely not maggots- they are very small, gray, with legs and the move pretty fast, mites? Should I wait til her wound is healed before treating for those? What about the rest of my flock? They don't have and feather loss or signs of problems.

 

[Judy]

If I still saw the bugs the next day, I'd mix a little Sevin garden dust into the Bacitracin, myself.

You might not have much of a lice/mite problem in the rest of the flock, but it's worth taking a look at them at nicght, and maybe treating the coop and them preventively. They are carried by wild birds, so it's not easy to avoid them entirely. Wood ash in dust baths helps the chickens control their numbers on themselves. Here are a couple of links about them:

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ig140

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/818674/are-these-some-kind-of-egg-clusters/0_20#post_11897957