My tiny u.p. farm

We were out feeding the chickens tonight, and realized one of our hens has a wound on her back. She is now in our makeshift “hen hospital.”

She’s one of my Production Red hens from our first batch of chickens, so she’s almost 3 years old.  She has historically been one of the roosters’ favorites, so she tends to look a bit beat up, missing feathers from too much male attention.  She happens to be molting right now, so with the roosters jumping on her, she developed a sore on her back, and then someone else started pecking at it.  Chickens have a habit of pecking at anything that is red, which isn’t good if someone has a wound.  I just noticed the sore tonight, and it looked really bad, so I figured we would take her in at least to clean it up.  After taking a better look I decided we will keep her in for a few days to let her heal up and rest for a bit.

I’ll let her stay in for a few days, at least until she heals up. Then she’ll get to wear a chicken apron if it doesn’t seem to hurt her – sometimes with the molt it hurts them to wear one, or be touched at all.  An apron will prevent the roosters from digging their claws into her back. She is a little small for the aprons I have, so I may have to resize one to fit her.