Scalped Chicken help !!

[NSChickenMamma]

My chickens are mean girls !!
Came home yesterday to my little girl (BCM mix) missing not only the feathers on her head ... but the skin too !! The feathers on the bottom are still in the skin, but the skin has pulled away from her head
I have her isolated in a dog crate with her wound covered as best as I can considering where the injury is. Cleaned with saline and coated gauze with polysporin.
I've never had an injury to this extent. She is semi-active and was eating and drinking a little last night. (she was really enjoying GZero Grape)
I can only imagine the pain she is in.
Think better to cull and put her out of her pain or try to get her healed?

 

[User690263]

Chickens are hardy little critters, they can often recover from injuries like that, so if I were in your position, I'd try to help her heal.
However, if it seems like her quality of life is decreasing or if there are any major complications, then euthanasia might be the kindest option.

 

[coach723]

I had a hen that was injured very similar to yours, attacked by the flock. I don't have a picture of when it happened, but did take one about 5 weeks into healing, which is below. Her skull was visible when it happened.
What I did was to flush the wound out really well with sterile saline. Then applied plain neosporin (that's what I had, plain triple antibiotic ointment would have been good too, and the polysporin is fine). I did not bandage at all, just reapplied the ointment 2 -3 times a day as needed, generously, to keep it coated. It formed a very thick scab, which I continued to apply the ointment to, to help keep it from cracking. The scab slowly peeled off from the edges in, on it's own. Picture below you can see the feathers just starting to come back in. Once she feathered out, you couldn't tell anything had ever happened. It does look like there may be a small flap at the bottom of the wound, I would try to press that in place with the ointment to try to get it to stay. That way it might heal in place. If not, it will slowly dry up and fall off eventually on it's own. Try to trim back those feathers around the wound to keep them out of the wound, that will help keep it cleaner and prevent infection. You can use a pair of small embroidery scissors if you have them. As long as there is no infection, she has every chance of recovering.
*EDIT* I kept her in a wire crate in the run, so she was still seen by the flock, but was safe, during healing. Once it was healed enough to not attract attention and get pecked, I returned her to the flock. If you have a lot of flies around you may need to keep her where they cannot get to the wound until it's started to scab over. You don't want flies to lay eggs in the wound and cause flystrike.