Chicken with large head wound on back of head, how to wrap?

[Ltilden]

Hi guys, looking for some help here. I found one of my chickens with a severe head wound last night. It’s looks like the other chickens pecked her head down to the bone, there’s an open wound about the size of a half dollar and it looks like I can see the skull bones. As soon as I found her I separated her and brought her inside. She is eating and drinking normally...I’m giving her her regular layer feed and water with electrolytes. It’s really bizarre because she is acting like nothing is wrong, but she has a giant hole in her head I tried to flush the wound with water and sprayed it with Vetricyn which made her scream in pain. I then attempted to wrap it: put a gauze pad with plain Neosporin on it on the wound and then vet wrap to hold it in place, but it’s not working. In order to get it to stay in place it has to be wrapped tightly, but when I do that she gasps as if she’s choking. I tried wrapping it loosely but she is able to just shake it off if it’s not tight enough.
I would love some advice on how to wrap a head wound on a chicken and if you have any advice on what else I can do to help her. I have a poultry vet right next to my work so I will see if I can get her an appointment there today. I’ve attached pictures of the wound, beware if you are squeamish. She is a 27 week old Cochin/Silkie cross.

 

[sourland]

It does not need to be wrapped. Just continue applying the antibiotic ointment. Such wounds generally heal with no problems. It will take time as they heal from the outside inward. Good luck with her.

 

[ChicNmom]

Also, You will need to keep her separated until it is fully healed. It should be fine with the above treatment as long as she doesn't scratch at it.

 

[Ltilden]

It does not need to be wrapped. Just continue applying the antibiotic ointment. Such wounds generally heal with no problems. It will take time as they heal from the outside inward. Good luck with her.

Okay, thank you! I left it unwrapped last night, and she is still doing well this morning, so that is a good sign. Would you suggest I bring her to the vet, or is that not necessary at this point if I continue with the treatment I have been doing?

 

[Ltilden]

Also, You will need to keep her separated until it is fully healed. It should be fine with the above treatment as long as she doesn't scratch at it.

Thank you! She will be an indoor chicken until it heals, I’m actually bringing her with me to work in her crate today so I can monitor her through out the day. She will stay in the car though, because I doubt my boss would be excited about an office chicken! Thank you for your quick reply it’s very much appreciated!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Keep the wound clean, apply your ointment and watch for pus or odors.
Generally something like this heals just fine.

Is she eating/drinking on her own and fairly active? If so, I would cage her within the coop/run so she can heal next to the flock, so hopefully, re-integration will be easier.

Curious if you have a rooster/cockerel and how much coop/run space you have (sq ft.)

 

[Chiarabrook]

Hi guys, looking for some help here. I found one of my chickens with a severe head wound last night. It’s looks like the other chickens pecked her head down to the bone, there’s an open wound about the size of a half dollar and it looks like I can see the skull bones. As soon as I found her I separated her and brought her inside. She is eating and drinking normally...I’m giving her her regular layer feed and water with electrolytes. It’s really bizarre because she is acting like nothing is wrong, but she has a giant hole in her head I tried to flush the wound with water and sprayed it with Vetricyn which made her scream in pain. I then attempted to wrap it: put a gauze pad with plain Neosporin on it on the wound and then vet wrap to hold it in place, but it’s not working. In order to get it to stay in place it has to be wrapped tightly, but when I do that she gasps as if she’s choking. I tried wrapping it loosely but she is able to just shake it off if it’s not tight enough.
I would love some advice on how to wrap a head wound on a chicken and if you have any advice on what else I can do to help her. I have a poultry vet right next to my work so I will see if I can get her an appointment there today. I’ve attached pictures of the wound, beware if you are squeamish. She is a 27 week old Cochin/Silkie cross.

If you have RAW honey, apply that to the wound. It is antimicrobial and a wound healer. If you feel more comfortable, you can alternate the honey and the neosporin. I hope she helps quickly.

 

[Chiarabrook]

If you have RAW honey, apply that to the wound. It is antimicrobial and a wound healer. If you feel more comfortable, you can alternate the honey and the neosporin. I hope she heals quickly.

 

[Ltilden]

Keep the wound clean, apply your ointment and watch for pus or odors.
Generally something like this heals just fine.

Is she eating/drinking on her own and fairly active? If so, I would cage her within the coop/run so she can heal next to the flock, so hopefully, re-integration will be easier.

Curious if you have a rooster/cockerel and how much coop/run space you have (sq ft.)

She is eating/drinking on her own and seems pretty spunky still. I was actually going to ask if that was a viable option - to keep her crated seperately in the run while she heals so she's not so lonely and wont have as hard of time re-integrating. I think I will try that.

The set up these chickens are in right now is a little unusual. They are in my garage coop, that I've use for quarantining new chickens before introducing them to the my existing flocks. In the garage they have a 8'x12' run and a large dog crate (I believe it's 4'x3') as the "coop".

Originally the 5 chickens that I got about 2 months ago (2 bantam easter eggers pullets who are about 6 months old now and 3 bantam cochin/silkie pullets who are about 7 months old now) were living in this coop by themselves, up until two weeks ago when I started to introduce them to the 3 chickens they would end up living with (1 bantam cochin rooster, 1 bantam cochin hen, and 1 rhode island red hen - weird mix I know but they grew up together and are bonded).

I decided to do the introduction in the garage coop, since we were having a terrible cold snap in New England, and one of my original bantam cochins that I was introducing to the newbies is a frazzle and doesn't tolerate the subzero temps and wind well. We did a slow introduction the first few days, by splitting the run in half so they could see each other. Then we removed the divider in the run and let them get to know each other. Everything seemed to be going fine, there was a few squabbles but nothing serious just normal pecking order stuff. I was just noting yesterday how well everyone was getting along! The RIR hen could care less about the newbies, she didn't ever attempt to peck them even once that I saw. My frazzled bantam cochin hen however was pretty defensive at first, and didn't want the newbies near her, but again it wasn't anything that set off alarm bells that something like this could happen. My bantam cochin roo was also standoffish with the new girls at first, but I noticed him tid bitting for them recently and it seemed like they were getting along

I have introduced new chickens to existing flocks 3 times before this and I've never had anything like this happen. I feel awful for her, and I'm wondering if I should separate the rest of the two flocks again, but I really don't want to have to start from zero on introducing them again, because eventually I will need to find a way to make this work.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

The 8x12 *should* be enough space, a dog crate as a coop for all of them would be pretty tight.
If they are in a garage, is that secure? If they are all trying to go in the "coop" at night, this may be where some squabbling/tension lies.

The back of the head wound is *usually* what I've seen from a cockerel/rooster, but it could be caused by picking as well (a small cut/injury gets noticed and everyone jumps on it).

Whether the injury was intentional or if it just happened it would be hard to know. With mine, it was absolutely intentional as evidenced on video (I have coop/run cameras). That rooster was culled -he got more than 1 chance too, but that's another story). Anyway, just observe interaction. Chicken skin can be somewhat thin and rips easy so this may have started as something minor and progressed to picking.