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ive just found a yb 12 days old that has been pecked so badly that its skull is showing through the top of its head its back is also red raw where its been pecked, the yb seems bright enough in itself and is trying to feed   is there anything i can treat the skull with to keep out infection?  ive cleaned the wound with salt water and will see how the yb is over the next couple of hours? should i try and save the bird or should i reluctantly move it on    debbie

seems you have done the right thing , get some iodine solution for wounds , it will keep the infection out , i had a yb scalped looked bad but its feathers have grown back

Quoted from DJ

ive just found a yb 12 days old that has been pecked so badly that its skull is showing through the top of its head its back is also red raw where its been pecked, the yb seems bright enough in itself and is trying to feed   is there anything i can treat the skull with to keep out infection?  ive cleaned the wound with salt water and will see how the yb is over the next couple of hours? should i try and save the bird or should i reluctantly move it on    debbie

the young bird will be just fine debbie read an article a couple of weeks bk same thing happened to a young bird then it comes out an wins big style.... he/she will be grand, no need move t on or to molly coddle it either

had a young bird meself this year scalped to bits just left it alone an was grand hav her training with no bother we see how she performs

ive had this happen with canarys turned out to be a mouse.....pete

did the mouse have wings ?    

Quoted from OLDYELLOW

did the mouse have wings ?    

AYE

i did hear about the magic tractor it turned into a field,  but a canary turning into a mouse pretty amazing

It should be fine, just make sure the one that done it is kept away from it, it is amazing the healing power a pigeon has

Quoted from OLDYELLOW

i did hear about the magic tractor it turned into a field,  but a canary turning into a mouse pretty amazing

Jerry bet watch out Tweety will be after his job

Just leave it and let it heal on its own ,best to make sure it is keept completly dry it will heal better ,dust with some kind of healing powder ,i used ordinary flour on one and it worked a treat ATB les.

Quoted from OLDYELLOW

did the mouse have wings ?    

if i wanted to listen to an ar****le id fart

id make a witty reply but dont think you would get it , however if you read your post without the comma,  that didn't put in you would see the funny side.

I had one scalped Debbie, although the wound soon healed and feathered over, the bird's development was slightly delayed. It was smaller and took longer to fly than the others.  However, it is fine now and I can't tell it apart from the rest!

Quoted from OLDYELLOW

id make a witty reply but dont think you would get it , however if you read your post without the comma,  that didn't put in you would see the funny side.

pmsl let he who is without sin cast the first stone,id think before you pull somebody over there punctuation you shouldnt leave full words out never mind a tiny little comma.....yis pete

one word no comma i can laugh at my mistakes  

Quoted from OLDYELLOW

one word no comma i can laugh at my mistakes  

and i cant you should see the wife [exclamation full stop]

lmao

this has hapened to me a number of times and alough the bird heals and looks the part ive never finnished a season with one let alone win only my opinion

Quoted from peter.j

and i cant you should see the wife [exclamation full stop]

Had this happen as a teenager, one and only time I let the birds nest on the loft floor, both nestlings got scalped, heads balooned to twice normal size, yes, the birds themselves seemed bright enough.

Man that was keeping me right at the time said that they were best killed and 'that they never turn out good', so I culled them.

I'm sorry to hear that these wounds are down to the skull - never seen anything that bad, but as long as you keep the wound antiseptic and sealed ( a cream of some sort ) the bird will do all the repair work: new skin will grow out from the sides of the wound over the bone, and feathers will grow from the new skin. Hope all goes well.

thanks everyone 4 all the replies  as i said the head wound is really bad and the yb has no skin only bone showing thru on the top of his head and one of his eyes is now worse    ive treated the head wound with anti-septic powder but its not looking too good  the yb has gone very quite and isnt moving much unless touched but i will perservere 4 now and hope for the best   the yearling cock bird that scalped the yb had blood on his beak and wattles so he really did a number on the poor yb   hes been put in a crate 4 the moment  its the 1st time i nearly lost my temper with one of my birds  im now worried that he may get a taste 4 bullying the young,uns    debbie

Quoted from DJ

thanks everyone 4 all the replies  as i said the head wound is really bad and the yb has no skin only bone showing thru on the top of his head and one of his eyes is now worse    ive treated the head wound with anti-septic powder but its not looking too good  the yb has gone very quite and isnt moving much unless touched but i will perservere 4 now and hope for the best   the yearling cock bird that scalped the yb had blood on his beak and wattles so he really did a number on the poor yb   hes been put in a crate 4 the moment  its the 1st time i nearly lost my temper with one of my birds  im now worried that he may get a taste 4 bullying the young,uns    debbie

Just keep it in for a while, we had a rouge fantail cock that did the same thing, get a hen to keep it occupied
Let's hope it recovers, I have seen some amazing healing on pigeons, this one was hawked and still survived  

Debbie, unfortunately it appears to be the nature of the beast, 'jealous genes' maybe, the male of the species, given the opportunity,  always seems very able to kill offsping that he himself didn't sire.

With pigeons, it seems no different, make sure that those opportunities   are limited and one thing's for sure, when they draw blood, they'll keep at it till the target youngster, hen, or other cock is dying or dead. Last year a cock was removed from one of our Open race baskets, feathers  away from his head and the back of his neck, skin broken and red with blood. That bird had been in that basket less than 2 hours, and Fed officials reckoned had he not been spotted, he'd have been dead before morning. As it was, I took him home with me, cleaned him up and handed him back to his owner next afternoon at the after-race clock meeting, definitely OK and will live to race another day.  

You didn't say how old your youngster was, is it feeding by itself or is it still being fed by its parents? Give it at least a week to brighten up. I still have a bird that when a YB lost part of his eye in an accident in my garden. Didn't think  he'd last the night.  I broke 1/4 of a soluble child aspirin in his jar of drinking water for the pain, but he wouldn't eat and didn't seem to be drinking - not much anyway.. and it was a week before I saw he was coming round. I know birds don't feel pain the way we humans do, but I think they suffer 'shock' like us, at least it looked very like it in my bird, so maybes that's what you are seeing?  

But we can only do so much - give it a week, but at the first sign of suffering, be prepared to put the bird out of its misery.

really rotten when this happens, but allthough they heal quite well, their allways left with a bad scarring on the head, pesonally , never found them to be great at racing , but for breeding ok,