We recently added five 6-wk old hens to our existing flock of four birds. Its been a stressful time for our older birds, they lost 2 in a fox attack, then moved to a new updated coop and then a few weeks later we added these new girls. We let them all be in the run area, separated for a few days and separate at night. Then we added the younger birds to the coop, but gave them a separate area to be in that the older birds were too large to enter. The younger birds could come out of this area when they wanted. All seemed well until we came out to find one of the 6-wk olds had been severely attacked. Her head has lost all of its feathers and it seems a great deal of tissue. We're not able to tell if one of her eyes is too swollen to open or gone. I am fortunate to live near Tufts Animal Hospital so I took her. They gave me 10 days of intramuscular oxytetracycline injections to give her, along with 5-days of an oral anti-inflammatory. We're keeping her inside, separate from the other hens, but nearby a group of Silkie chicks that just arrived. She seemed alert and responsive in the 24-48hrs after the attack, but now she seems exhausted and sleeps constantly. She is eating, drinking, defecating and even seems to become a little extra alert when I bring her a bowl of crushed grapes.
I'm curious to know if anyone has any experience with this sort of thing? I understand she is probably in pain, depressed and I'm giving her shots (which I'm not that great at) twice a day all over her chest. Have you seen hens recover from this sort of thing? Her head looks just awful, I can't imagine if feathers will ever return to it. Even the doctors couldn't tell if she had an eye. Just the same, she is an Astralorpe with a docile demeanor and just wants to sleep on your arm. My heart is breaking for her.
We've kept a close eye on the rest of the flock and there haven't been any other signs of major aggression. I'm not sure what happened to cause them to do this.
I'm curious to know if anyone has any experience with this sort of thing? I understand she is probably in pain, depressed and I'm giving her shots (which I'm not that great at) twice a day all over her chest. Have you seen hens recover from this sort of thing? Her head looks just awful, I can't imagine if feathers will ever return to it. Even the doctors couldn't tell if she had an eye. Just the same, she is an Astralorpe with a docile demeanor and just wants to sleep on your arm. My heart is breaking for her.
We've kept a close eye on the rest of the flock and there haven't been any other signs of major aggression. I'm not sure what happened to cause them to do this.