# Silkie attacked



## Hania41806 (May 4, 2021)

Warning!! Pictures are not for the faint of heart.
My poor sweet girl, chicky hen, was brutally attacked by i believe a cat. 

Yesterday early morning I found a hen that had been struggling for a bit dead. I didn’t inspect her closely because it was early, I had to get to school, and I figured she just died because of the illness.

When I got home I found that another one of my hens was also dead. A hen that didn’t have any health issues before. I checked her over and she was missing many of the feathers on her back/side and some on her neck. She was also bleeding out of these areas.

I checked the first dead hen and she was also missing feathers on her side and bleeding. I decided to check all of my birds for injuries. I found poor chicky hen with her foot tangled badly in some twine and her head looking like this:















All the skin on her scalp is basically peeled up and feathers are missing. Her skull is exposed.















The skin on her head is just completely mangled. Other than that the rest of her looks good. She is still eating and drinking on her own and is acting great considering her state.

I’m really worried about her skull being exposed. I’m worried it’ll dry out and become brittle. Can I put neosporin on it to keep it moist?


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## DeLuc (3 mo ago)

Poor lady. Some silkies have a vaulted skull, that can be dangerous when injured, so I would double check for that. But she still seems to have part of her crest.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Hania, how did whatever get in?

Keep Neosporin on her head. But first clean that wound thoroughly with saline. Dry it as much as you can and then put the ointment on it. And where you can under that flap of skin. Smooth the skin down over it. 

You might eventually have to trim if off if it dies. I know you can be squeamish about this kind of thing, do you think you're Mom will help? 

If you keep the ointment on the wound it should slowly granulate back in. Very slowly.


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## Lillith (10 mo ago)

I just had a hen with a very similar injury on the back of her neck this summer. Very gruesome, looked like the skin had peeled back. I don't know what caused it, though. I cleaned it with soap and water until all I could see was pink and red. Then I flushed it a bit more with Vetiricyn. I couldn't get a covering on it because it was in such a weird spot, so I separated her from the flock to prevent picking and let it heal a bit, but she didn't seem to enjoy that. I ended up spraying Blu Kote on it and letting her loose again. As long as I kept the area sprayed with Blu Kote, the others didn't seem to bother her. She did get it pretty dirty a few more times and I had to wash it out again.

She made a full recovery. The only indication there was an injury is shorter feathers where the wound was. Other than that, the skin healed just fine and she's back to getting into trouble.


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## Hania41806 (May 4, 2021)

i tried to wash her wound out and she started fighting me, so I’m gonna have my mom help by holding her in place while I gently spray the wound out. She’s acting completely normal other than her stress poops, but stress poops are expected. I’ll keep you all updated.


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## Lillith (10 mo ago)

I like to burrito roll them in a towel, and then put them in one of those oval shaped cleaning/mop buckets to prop them up. Works well in a pinch when you haven't got a helper.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

See, I'm glad Lillith is popping in on this. Even though I knew about the burrito roll I forgot about it. It's very effective when trying to deal with the head area.


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## Lillith (10 mo ago)

They do seem to like the towel trick. I've treated/bathed some pretty flighty birds by wrapping them in a towel. My oval wash bucket works well for standard sized birds alone, too, when they just need a bit of a bath because its skinny enough to trap the wings. They seem to settle well when it's filled with warm water. You can also just drape a heavy wet towel over the top of the bucket to keep their head exposed but keep them down, too. I've done that if burrito roll isn't working or a I need to bathe the vent area and need access.


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