head injury

Question
I'm aware that you don't have much to say on birds, but I assume most head injuries are treated alike? If you had an animal (this one is a chicken) that appeared to have a small piece of their head missing to the point that you could see their skull, and you didn't know what the cause of injury was, how might you treat it? I have already brought her into my house where it is warmer and so that the other flock members won't stress her out. Thank you for taking the time to read this

Answer
Well Chickens are unique in that they don't have any nerve endings in their skin. So they don't feel the pain we would if our skin was torn and we had a chunk of skull missing.

This is not unusual if she is with other chickens. For some reason, (pecking order mostly), chickens are good at turning on each other and causing some pretty major damage.

You were right to remove her, because once the flock sees or smells that she is injured, they will do their best to eliminate her.

I have had to nurse back my own chickens in this regard and keep them in a cage with a heat lamp on them until they recovered and could be returned to the flock. Even then I had to keep an eye on them.

As far as treating the wound, if it's not bleeding then I would just let it be. It most likely will just close up on its own. If it starts to smell or ooze, then you will need to get her on some antibiotics that you can probably get at a feed store.

Hopefully her recovery will be uneventful!