Roosters with frostbite in cold climate

[Magpie2]

We live in Canada and try our best to keep the coop above freezing but the outside temps got to -30C for a couple nights and now we have two boys with frostbitten wattles.
We brought one inside for now because he’s low in the pecking order and at greater risk of getting bullied. The other is second to the top roo and doesn’t get in fights so less risk of infection.

Do we need to bring them both inside though? We have one of our hens inside too and don’t want to stress her or risk them fighting because she’s there but we can figure something out if we need to.

The also seem to have different degrees of frostbite as well and I’m not sure which is more severe and what to look out for. The one who’s inside right now has blistering going on while the other has dark, almost black areas and both have swelling.

I’ve read that you mostly just want to keep them warm and they’ll heal on their own but is there anything else we can do to help?

These are both pictures of the one inside

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Yes, keeping them warm will help them heal if they haven't gone too far. Looking at your pictures, they don't look too far from my experience. On a side note, if you're planning on putting them back outside this winter, you don't want them inside long. If you do keep them inside long enough for them to heal, then return them to those cold temps, they could literally freeze to death. (Also, keep in mind that unthawing the frostbite is very painful to the bird.)

 

[Magpie2]

Yes, keeping them warm will help them heal if they haven't gone too far. Looking at your pictures, they don't look too far from my experience. On a side note, if you're planning on putting them back outside this winter, you don't want them inside long. If you do keep them inside long enough for them to heal, then return them to those cold temps, they could literally freeze to death. (Also, keep in mind that unthawing the frostbite is very painful to the bird.)

I’m so glad to hear that they don’t look too bad. These birds are more like pets than livestock and we’re feeling really badly that they’re hurting at all.

Our temperatures tend to fluctuate a lot unfortunately. It only got that cold for a couple nights and isn’t predicted to get like that again until next year as far as I know (-20C is pretty normal at night though). We are keeping him in a cooler part of the house where there’s a window he can stare and crow at his buddies through. They have windows on the coop too and it’s pretty cute watching them watch each other once your ears stop bleeding.
We’ll probably put him back outside, at least on warm days, once his scabs clear so there’s less chance of infection.
We had him outside on a nice day for a while and he got into three fights and ended up with a bloody bite mark on his ear, we were lucky it wasn’t his wattles, not about to do that again, especially now that the blisters have scabbed over and are healing. Normally they “fight” with a little dance and a three second chase so that was extremely unusual.
We try to keep the coop above freezing (we have a handful of rescue hens missing lots of feathers) so they were already thawed by the time we noticed the frostbite. They both shake their heads more often than normal but hopefully it’s just because the skin feels weird for now and not because they’re in pain.