Please help

[LoSmith]

Today we found one of our chickens with a major wound on the entirety of her back side. We can not find any entry into our coop by a predator (they are completely enclosed) and none of the other chickens have any injuries. Does anyone know what might have happened and/or have any advice on how to care for her. We have separated her from the flock but we do not have any vets in our area that will see livestock/poultry

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Let me tag one of our Educators. @Eggcessive

 

[Eggcessive]

Look carefully for any maggots moving around. Be sure to keep her away from flies, since they can lay maggot larvae into wounds like this. That is deadly and called flystrike. You can spray some saline or wound spray on her wounds, and then apply plain Neosporin or triple antibiotic ointment twice a day to keep the wound from drying out.

Have you ever seen any feather or vent pecking from your chickens? Do you have a rooster? Do they get out to free range first thing in the morning? What are you feeding them? Was she low in the pecking order? Sometimes they can pull out feathers, and if the area turns red or bleeds, the others may peck and cannibalize the chicken. Could she have suffered the wound before she came in last evening, and then the others pecked her?

 

[Eggcessive]

Just in case here is a graphic video of a hen with flystrike, and fast forward to 4:30 to see the maggots:

 

[LoSmith]

Look carefully for any maggots moving around. Be sure to keep her away from flies, since they can lay maggot larvae into wounds like this. That is deadly and called flystrike. You can spray some saline or wound spray on her wounds, and then apply plain Neosporin or triple antibiotic ointment twice a day to keep the wound from drying out.

Have you ever seen any feather or vent pecking from your chickens? Do you have a rooster? Do they get out to free range first thing in the morning? What are you feeding them? Was she low in the pecking order? Sometimes they can pull out feathers, and if the area turns red or bleeds, the others may peck and cannibalize the chicken. Could she have suffered the wound before she came in last evening, and then the others pecked her?

Thank you so much for your help. I have cleaned it with saline and applied antibiotic ointment. I also have her separated with electrolytes in her waterer. The flock is all the same age around 4 months and have been watching for bullies. They all seem to get along but she is low on the pecking order so maybe I missed the initial wound and they have made it so much worse without my noticing. They are in a large fully enclosed coop with cement footing, no free ranging as we have too many predators in our area. They are fed layer pellets now since we just started getting eggs (were on chick starter until a week or so ago) along with scratch grain and mill worms as treats.

 

[Eggcessive]

Take it easy on the scratch and treats. A bit of scrambled egg or tuna bits shared can give some extra protein.