Tail injury with swelling.

[Exopoulterer]

Scaley the Henster (runty chicken) may have been pecked at the tail or have an ingrown feather. It is her right side. Sort of where the outer nostril of the Parson's nose would be.

She seems to be in the last mini molt I noticed the other pullets of the same age (Nuz may actually be a week or two younger.) had right before they started laying a couple months ago. Scaley's estimated hatch date is 4/20/25.

Maybe because of her runtyness and being the only one not laying, she gets picked on by Big Red and some squabbling from The Nuzzler.
Until now, I have never seen a mark on her. She is fast and flies well. Flies up to my arm or shoulder for treats or just cause. She dodges Red often and actually takes some crap from Nuz without running away.

I discovered a bit of messy feather with some old blood there yesterday. Wiped with a warm wet gauze and applied triple antibiotic cream.

Today, I went in with warm saline compresses just with cotton rounds and the scab loosened up. I removed that and it bled a little. I dried it the best I could and added more triple antibiotic. She hated this. I can tell it hurts her when I mess with the area.

She holds her tail a little bit to the right now. I feel like it really stressed her to have that messed with.

Is there anything else that I should be doing?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Sounds like you are treating this well.

How does her Preening Gland look, any swelling of the nub?

 

[Exopoulterer]

Sounds like you are treating this well.

How does her Preening Gland look, any swelling of the nub?

The nub looks pretty normal as far as nubs go. This bird allows me to touch her everywhere but that little nub. If I look for it or touch it, she makes the sound from Super Mario bros, when Mario gets hurt. "Brrrrt! (Don't touch that!)"

 

[Exopoulterer]

Here it is today and a couple shots of the "no touch! spot" (preen gland). Ohhh she hated that. Lol