We've been wanting some Wellsumer pullets for a while now. Yesterday I found some a couple of counties away and we made the drive to pick up the three Wellsumer pullets the guy had. Unfortunately He had been keeping all the young birds(roughly 5 months old) together in the barn...must have been 35 or so in one pen. The roos must have outnumbered the pullets or at least had too many roos for the number of pullets in there. Before he realized it the roos were really roughing up the girls. He'd pulled the girls out a few days ago and they seemed ok except for the physical beating they took. We have them in a temporary coop on the opposite side of the house from the other chickens(biosecurity you know!) Once we got them home we were amazed at the injuries they had suffered!
Today Eva brought them in the house one at a time and gave them baths and cleaned their wounds. You can imagine the torn up necks and the backs of their heads and missing feathers! Quite a bit of scab tissue over the wounds and one of the girls has a big chunk of live(but healing,not raw) skin (maybe 1/4" diameter and sticking out 1/2" from her neck) that is torn loose and hanging off to one side complete with feathers just behind her ear. It's healing ok but we're afraid that in a month when we introduce them to the main flock the others will pick at it. It's still attatched by a good sized chunk of skin and we don't know if we should leave it be or try to cut it off. The other two have some pretty big scab areas on their necks but no hanging skin. Will feathers come back in these areas?
On the bright side, all three of the girls are eating well,they seem to be settling into their new home and they don't seem real afraid of us. When Eva gave them the baths and treated the wounds they were calm and seemed to enjoy the bath and blow-dryer. One even fell asleep in her lap while she was drying her.
Eva did use Hibiclens (antiseptic/antimicrobial skin cleanser) to clean the wounds and treated them with Betadine after the baths.
So I guess I'm looking for the answers to these questions.
#1 Should we try to cut the hanging flap of skin off or let it be?
#2 Should we disturb the scabs beyond cleaning and trying to soften them up some(pretty big bumps under some of them)?
#3 Will they always have bare spots in the damaged areas or will feathers eventually grow back?
Thanks for any help!
Larry
Today Eva brought them in the house one at a time and gave them baths and cleaned their wounds. You can imagine the torn up necks and the backs of their heads and missing feathers! Quite a bit of scab tissue over the wounds and one of the girls has a big chunk of live(but healing,not raw) skin (maybe 1/4" diameter and sticking out 1/2" from her neck) that is torn loose and hanging off to one side complete with feathers just behind her ear. It's healing ok but we're afraid that in a month when we introduce them to the main flock the others will pick at it. It's still attatched by a good sized chunk of skin and we don't know if we should leave it be or try to cut it off. The other two have some pretty big scab areas on their necks but no hanging skin. Will feathers come back in these areas?
On the bright side, all three of the girls are eating well,they seem to be settling into their new home and they don't seem real afraid of us. When Eva gave them the baths and treated the wounds they were calm and seemed to enjoy the bath and blow-dryer. One even fell asleep in her lap while she was drying her.
Eva did use Hibiclens (antiseptic/antimicrobial skin cleanser) to clean the wounds and treated them with Betadine after the baths.
So I guess I'm looking for the answers to these questions.
#1 Should we try to cut the hanging flap of skin off or let it be?
#2 Should we disturb the scabs beyond cleaning and trying to soften them up some(pretty big bumps under some of them)?
#3 Will they always have bare spots in the damaged areas or will feathers eventually grow back?
Thanks for any help!
Larry
