Well, just when it's all running status quo, this happens....
First truly warm, sunny day and Georgie's group is out sunning themselves. When it's finally time for them to go inside, I pick up Maretta, who has been asking for me to do it on and off ever since I let them out, which is not at all like her. She was insistent. This last time I picked her up to take her to the pen, I felt something under her wing. I thought it was a glob of stuck poop, but then I looked at it and saw a scab and felt a large lump. Remember, they have no rooster to inflict an under the wing wound.
Then, I felt around, and felt another lump close by, two very large growths or whatever, under her wing. I yell for Tom who is thankfully outside to do some fence work. We both smell something nasty, coming off the wounds, so we know there is infection. We rush her to the house and she is happy to be carried and to finally get someone's attention, it seems to us. She just laid on her side in my lap, tucked her head under my arm and let us work. we sprayed the Vetericyn onto the wounds and realized the scabs were moving so we removed them. Underneath was some obvious infection and both began to bleed. We kept rinsing them off and dabbing the blood away. Finally, Tom remembered the big tub of Silver Sulfadiazene cream that we have. We slathered both wounds with that, put on gauze and put vet wrap around her body so it would hold the dressings on and keep her from picking at them too much. And we began a round of penicillin. It had been so long since we used anything like that, wasn't even sure we had a good needle, but we did and she was a real trooper.
I took pictures of the nasty places. All I can think of is that they are feather follicles gone crazy. There is no rooster with her, not sure what else it could be. I've picked her up on rare occasion, but I don't automatically run my fingers under her wings because of the fact that there is no rooster to inflict damage in there.
