Mating injury???

[honeynajar]

This is Beulah. I noticed last night that she has something wierd going on with the side of her face. It's not nice and red like the other side - its brownish black. My wonder is that BOB got a big carried away, and caused an injury that has to date gone unnoticed. I've never seen any blood around the spot. Is this the cause or is there something not right? She's eating well and acting just fine. What can I do to help it? Any thoughts? Thanks so much!

 

[ChicKat]

Is it possible that there was an insect, scorpion, spider or snake bite?

 

[honeynajar]

Insect, spider or snake - yes. Scorpion no - we are in PA. It's all black and crusty now - I put on some antibiotic and it doesn't seem any better. She doesn't act any different than she ever has - eats just fine. Its just really ugly looking.

 

[ChicKat]

Hi honey----

I hope it cleared up. I suspect some kind of insect bit the hen....but hopefully she will be resilient and totally well by now. :O)

 

[honeynajar]

Yes thank you it did clear up. I put some neosporin on it - she wasn't too much of a fan. One day it was all black and crusty. The next it must have fallen off because it looks brand new. These chickens... mise well be children as much as we worry about them!

 

[ChicKat]

That is SO TRUE.

Sometimes I have found out they do better when I back out and let them sort out the problem themselves. LOL - I guess we just cannot help ourselves. I was having an "everyone get into the coop without squabbling" issue -- and it seemed the nights I didn't get there until after dark they had figured it out by themselves somehow.

 

[leadwolf1]

I found this thread very interesting...I am also in PA and just lost my black autralorp pullet to what I am thinking was a spider bite in the exact same spot. Her's swelled up to about the size of a blueberry. It was all fluid filled. I applied neosporin and she was acting absolutely fine. However, I think that it caused a systemic infection that went undetected. She died in my son's arms...after death, bright yellow diarrhea was flowing freely from her body. What is odd about that is she never had yellow diarrhea while alive. She had started acting a little off so we had her quarantined...no yellow diarrhea at all in the shavings. I really wish I had known what had bitten her and that it would prove fatal

 

[honeynajar]

Oh Leadwolf1 how dreadful!

I wondered the same thing! I thought at first it was a mating injury since Bob does get quite excited... but after the posts the injury from a pest seemed much closer. Beulah never acted odd. Just had this nasty hard black thing. I wondered at the time if it wasn't a reclusive brown spider. We def have them here and all of mine go in the woods all the time.