When I was watering the chickens this morning I noticed that one of my eating chickens had been pecked by the other chickens to such a degree that it had a big open wound, 1 x 1/2 inch. I took it out and isolated it, cleaned its wound and put some antibiotic cream on it. I'm guessing it started as a little spot and the other chickens just couldn't resist pecking at the spot and making it worse and worse.

My question is since it doesn't look infected and the chicken seems happy and healthy in all other respects should I butcher it now and eat it, wait for it to heal, cull it and write off the meat? It is the right age and size for butchering.

-- Anita in NC (anitaholton@mindspring.com), December 17, 2001

Answers

what was the chickens purpose? for meat,, go ahead now,, if not,, it should heal,, keep her seperate,,she should be fine

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), December 17, 2001.

The chicken was raised specifically for meat.

-- Anita in NC (anitaholton@mindspring.com), December 17, 2001.

eat it now,, so ,,in case of infection,,it wont go to waste

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), December 17, 2001.

over the years we have saved quite afew hens which had been injured sewing them and cleaning wounds honey or vegtable oil will aid in removing magots from a wound but unlesss its a special bird because of blood lines or pet status the best first aid is a quick butchering its not very efficient to nurse them back an acident before they reach a good fryer size is easily skined and dropped in the freaser suspected sick birds i wring the neck to keep blood from spreading pop the entire bird intp an old pressure cooker i have and streilize then feed to my dogs that way it is not a total financial loss and breaks the disease cycle

-- george darby (windwillow@fuse.net), December 17, 2001.

If you are going to kill a chicken anyway, I'd do this one. You can't put it back in with the other chickens without a lot of fooling around trying to disguise the wound or they'll get going on it again. It's one of the annoying things about chickens.

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), December 17, 2001.