Rooster with bloody head

[Jacob42]

We noticed yesterday our rooster had a small blood chunk on his head, he is a polish, only other rooster is a young silkie. The polish is the head honcho and even tries to prrove himself to the kids, but today we noticed his head had quite a bit of blood on it. We are going to bring him in tomorrow for a bath and thorough cleaning and checkup but does anyone have any ideas what to look for or ideas of how to treat it? The only thing I can think of is if he jumps up and hits his head on something in the coop? Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

[Guitartists]

Sounds like he is fighting. Typical sign as they will grab each others comb and wattles. And don't think that Silkies won't fight... LOL Honestly I've never done much of anything to treat my roos, just got rid of the extras so that there was no more fighting...... I have a Silkie with a blind eye now because of the fighting. All is finally calm here, but it took getting rid of a lot of cockerels. I reckon it'll be time again as soon as the chicks hatched this summer start to come into their own

Just don't use anything with any Benzocain (?) in it. This numbing agent found in some first aid gels etc can be lethal to birds. Blue Kote (sp?) is a common treatment that folks like to use on their birds if they have injuries. You could also just clean it and maybe apply a little vaseline to help stop the bleeding. But honestly..... my roos seem no worse for wear.... just do something before somebody loses an eye!

 

[Jacob42]

Our silkie is very young and the polish rooster treats him as if he were a baby or another female. He still lets the silkie eat when the girls eat, the all the silkies are afraid of the polish and refuse to stand up to him, so I am sure they are not fighting behind closed doors

 

[Ridgerunner]

He could have injured himself, maybe getting down from the roost. You might look for nails sticking out or maybe edges of wire he could have hit, especially coming down from the roost. Polish can't see well and any chicken can sometimes be a little clumsy.

Sometimes the hens will pick the feathers of a rooster, especially the lead rooster, and he lets them. It is like they are grooming him. It is often his favorite hens that do it. You may have a feather picking hen that cannot resist the Polish's head dress. They may have drawn blood which will attract more pecking.

That's all I can think of. Good luck!

 

[Mojo Chick'n]

Last Fall my roo accidently dinged his comb on something sharp - gave him the tiniest nick - but it bled like he was a hemophiliac!!

He was fine, it looked MUCH worse than it actually was.

Naturally he shook his head when it happened, and he sprayed blood all over the garage (probably how he hurt himself, they were hiding in the garage from the wind.) I saw the garage before I found him - it looked like someone had butchered a small animal in there.

I just cleaned it off (carefully so as not to pull off any scab) and dabbed some blukote on it, gave them all some extra vitamins in the water for a few days and he is fine and healthy still.

meri