Wound on chicken's head

[rusty acres]

Today I noticed one of my 12 week old ISA brown pullets has a sore on her head. She is otherwise acting normal. I have 13 chickens total- 2 EEs (one young layer and one older pullet who should be laying any day now), 3 Beidelfelders and 6 ISA browns all about 11-12 weeks old, and 2 Speckled Sussex about 8 1/2 weeks old). They are all together in a large open air coop and get about 30-60 minutes of free range time every day while I do my chicken chores. None of the other birds have any sores and all appear to be acting normally. The sore resembles photos I've seen of bumblefoot, so I'm thinking maybe some injury that got infected? I put Neosporin on it but wasn't sure what else was safe to do.

 

[FlyingNunFarm]

I would say she got pecked. Chickens see red very well so a small injury draws attention and can become a larger injury with help from the others.

I personally would try and soak it with a warm cloth and see if that scab comes off. Make sure it's clean and see how deep it is.

After that, depending on what you find, treatment could be easy or a little more complicated....

Blu-Kote is good for visible injuries. It helps heal and literally turns it blue. Then the others don't think it's a wound to peck.

 

[rusty acres]

Update:

After a couple days of cleaning with veteracin poultry spray and Neosporin, it looked like stuff was, um, working it's way out. So I worked at it for a bit and got all the gunk out (pic included for those who, like me, haven't done this before. I wasn't expecting it to be so...solid.) Then I dried the wound and coated with Blu Kote. Hoping it keeps healing well! Does anyone use Neosporin with Blu Kote? I wasn't sure if I should just stick with Blu Kote or if Neosporin was ok to put on after.

 

[coach723]

I usually use neosporin until it's healed up enough to be closed, then Blu Kote if its visible enough to be a pecking risk (honestly I don't like blu kote because I usually get more on me than them! ) But as long as it looks like it's healing well probably either is ok. Looks like a pecking wound that had some infection. And, yes, chicken pus is much more solid, their bodies try to encapsulate infection. Looks like you did a really good job getting it cleaned out.

 

[FlyingNunFarm]

You could do both I would think. Personally the neosporin would be more helpful. You don't want to put too much so it collects dust and debris. But I think it's more healing then Blu-Kote. More important is she's not getting pecked. Reinjuring it isn't helpful. So the decision to use how much of what depends on you and the chickens.
Use your best judgement. No wrong answer as long as you try.

(And yes chicken pus is cheesy)