Missing skin.

[philjonesgl1]

I have a hen that was attacked and is missing a large part of her skin. There isn't any bleeding but there looks to be a small tear in a back muscle. I'm wondering if this can turn into scar tissue or if it will never heal. The hen seems to be fine with it and not showing sings of any pain.

Any similar stories or tips on what to do would be great.

 

[eggchel]

Not knowing the extent of the injury, I cant give you much advice except to separate her from the other chickens so that they wont pick at her wound. Give her antibiotics and extra protein (cat food is good), and see what happens.

chel

 

[4H kids and mom]

I once had a dove that was attacked by cats that left a large open wound on her back such as the one on your chicken. All the feathers were missing and I could actually 'see' into her. I feared she would die so I vowed to do what I could. I seperated her from the others and treated the wound with a triple antibiotic ointment (it was actually for humans, but worked wonderfully on her) and covered it loosely with a piece of gauze to keep dirt out. I changed the makeshift dressing twice a day, and slowly she began to heal up. After a week, the wound was covered enough to keep the gauze off so she could move a little better. After a couple of weeks, she was healed enough to go back with the others. She'd feathered back out with a month or two and then no one could even tell. She lived another year until a hawk got her.

I couldnt repair that.....

 

[silkiechicken]

I had a hen attacked once and her skin on one hip was ripped down to her side. I cleaned it up a bit and put the skin back as well as I could but some seemed missing. Kept her inside for a while and applied antibiotics to it, and she healed up just fine with a huge scar on her back. Feathers didnt come back to where the skin was totally gone. Try to see if you can stretch as much skin to cover up the open area as that will help it to heal. Good luck, let us know how she turns out.

 

[philjonesgl1]

The patch of missing skin is about the size of a credit card and the tear a little under an inch.

She looks a little better each day. The skin around the edges of the wound are starting to atcach to the muscle, and the tear is getting some membraine covering it. The bare patch without any skin has formed a good solid scab hopefuly froming scar tissue. There is a small part where the skin is lifted off the muscle in a small pocket. The skin and muscle both have there own scab, that aren't making contact. Should I maybe reopen these to wonds to try to reatach the skin.

 

[Wes in Tx]

IMO it is to late for that. THe skin will grow back eventually. One thing is she may not grow feathers back in that area.