Molting hen being bloodied

[vantain]

My poor girl Winnie, has been going through a molt. Other than being uncomfortable, she has been doing ok, and new feathers are coming out all over her body.

Today though, I found her backside all bloodied, and the other two hens appear to be going after her every chance they get. I cleaned her up as best I could, but there is a lot of blood there. She has a lot of new feather growth going in there.

Anything I can do to prevent this from getting worse, other than completely separating her from the other two? She’s already the bottom of the pecking order, made worse now by her molting. The other two are not molting.

 

[vantain]

Here are a few more photos of her molt, just for reference.

 

[aart]

Put her in a crate where they can't get at her.
If a pin feather will not stop bleeding you may have to pluck it.
Use a pair of needle nose pliers with a good grip, or hemostats.
Weird, only half the pic loaded

 

[vantain]

Put her in a crate where they can't get at her.
If a pin feather will not stop bleeding you may have to pluck it.
Use a pair of needle nose pliers with a good grip, or hemostats.
Weird, only half the pic loaded

Is this better?

 

[aart]

View attachment 2011974
Is this better?

The other one loaded...must have been a glitch.
Hard to tell what's what....you'll have to monitor once you have her separated.
If it stops bleeding you won't need to pluck.

 

[vantain]

The other one loaded...must have been a glitch.
Hard to tell what's what....you'll have to monitor once you have her separated.
If it stops bleeding you won't need to pluck.

I brought her inside to see what was going on in more detail. I cleaned up the blood, and it doesn’t appear to be bleeding anymore. I sprayed it with some antiseptic spray, then put a little peck-no-more on it. The others had gone to roost, so I put her back in the coop, snuggled between them for the night.

In the morning, I will separate her for the day. I have a large crate I will put her in, out in the run. I suppose I may need to do that for a few days, or a week, to let those tail feathers emerge more fully?

Sigh...this chicken has been a lot of work over the past few weeks.

 

[coach723]

Have you determined if it's a broken feather shaft that's bleeding, or if there is a pecking wound to the skin? Any blood present is going to draw more pecking and it will get worse, so you need to clean it up and stop the bleeding, wherever it's coming from. New feather shafts have a blood supply until they are fully formed and then the blood withdraws. Large flight feathers (tail and wing) have large shafts and can bleed a lot. If it won't stop with pressure, or with flour or cornstarch applied, then I would pull the shaft and then put pressure on the spot it came out until the bleeding stops. A large shaft can kind of act like a straw and allow a lot of blood loose. I would keep her separate in the crate until you know the bleeding is stopped (so you don't end up with a bad wound) and isn't going to restart.

 

[aart]

I sprayed it with some antiseptic spray, then put a little peck-no-more on it.

Is this stuff clear so you can see what's going on?
Not sure 'peck no more' will deter pecking.

I suppose I may need to do that for a few days, or a week, to let those tail feathers emerge more fully?

You'll just have to keep an eye on things.
She's a low bird so that's a problem too, especially if that was a problem before the molt.
Hopefully you have lots of space and places for her to get away from any 'bullying'.

 

[coach723]

Just my two cents, but I have not found peck no more to be very effective. And it's messy.

 

[vantain]

Just my two cents, but I have not found peck no more to be very effective. And it's messy.

They don’t seem to like the smell of it, and tend to leave it alone. However, I have found that it needs to be applied often. Right now, I’m just using it to maybe stop them from pecking her in the morning, before I get out there to separate her before the day starts.