Something strange, need some advice.

[YumeRyuu]

Hi, I just joined Backyard Chickens and I otherwise wouldn't have brought this up except for the fact I have never seen it before in any of my chickens.

I and my husband have 4 Rhode Island Reds (amongst other breeds).
Out of the 4 RIRs, 1 is a rooster and 3 are hens. One hen, as might happen in the pecking order, is at the bottom and got picked on by the rooster. It picked the back of her head and of course she was weak for a few days. We separated them and she had time to recover.
Now everything seems normal up until this point. I went out to check on the hen this morning and something strange is happening to her. Her head is beginning to get larger like a balloon.
It isn't swollen head syndrome though. I checked. Her head doesn't look like the images that are online. I should take a photo because the best way to describe it is it looks like her brain is getting bigger. I gave her antibiotics but really, she looks weird and I am wondering like, does this chicken have fluid on the brain or something? She is spending all her time inside now. Any ideas? And what should I do? All suggestions are welcome.

 

[YumeRyuu]

This is the pic of my RIR. Any ideas???

 

[Fancychooklady]

Hard to say which way to go. If you really feel that this is a result from injury perhaps a course of prednisone would help with the inflammation . However mycoplasma can present with similar symptoms . In which case you would be wise to treat with duramyacin or erythromycin .

 

[realsis]

If you feel this is brain swelling from a injury predinsone will help reduce the swelling. I had two cases of brain swelling and wry neck this last month.Both were cured with vitamin treatment for wry neck and predinsone for the brain swelling. With predinsone iI was treating with one milligram in am and one in pm.iI have 4 milligram tablets so iI quartered them into 1 milligram units. Giving one quarter in am and one pm equaling 2 milligrams. For a brain injury I think predinsone will help. You can't stop the predinsone all at once. They must be slowly weened off. Hope this helps good luck.

 

[Eggcessive]

I don't think this is brain swelling, but a seroma, a blood tinged collection of fluid resulting from a small blood vessel being damaged by the pecking. It may go down on it's own, but you may need to have it corrected by your vet if it keeps getting larger. They can open the wound and either stitch or cauterize the blood vessel. You could try opening the wound yourself, draining it and squeezing all the fluid out with a wash cloth, then apply pressure on it to see if if clots. But it may re-accumulate without treatment. Here is a link about serhttp://www.datasci.com/docs/technical-notes/392-0027-002-rev-61.pdf?sfvrsn=2omas: