Chicken Coop Emergency room news

Well, things are getting tense here. Seems our girls are getting into
cannibalism. When we came home tonight and I checked on them to see
what they were up to in the night time, I found another Araucana was
being picked on and had a big wound in its side near the tail. May
explain the demise of the first one. So I went into panic mode and got
Jeanne out there with me. After much difficulty and no cooperation from
any of the girls, we were able to finally catch the wounded one. This
was only after she made the mistake of getting into a nest box. Pete
was busy doing his rooster thing, which kind of got in the way also.
We put her in a box, got some straw into it, and she is now in the
energency room in the house, with water and food. She has been treated
with triple antibiotic cream and is resting in the living room. From my
reading it seems they do this for a variety of reasons, like boredom
(they haven't been out much these last few cold days), too much light
(we did up the wattage with the freezing weather), not enough protein
in their feed (don't think that is an issue here), the sight of blood
may get them started (the vent on the dead one did look like it had
been opened, and they may have started on this new one as a
substitute). We are told to remove the wounded chicken until the wound
heals. We have a temporary solution to that for tonight. Anyone have a
bigger box, a cage, or something we can put in the garage to keep her
happy? It isn't going to be so cold for a few days. If we can get the
wound healed a bit, we can put Vicks Vapo-rub on it and they will leave
her alone. This worked when the little chick got picked on last spring.
Trick we learned from Patty at the Emu ranch. Since the temperature in
the coop seems to be 40 now, I took out the heat light and the 100 watt
and left only a 75. We may have to reduce the lighting further if they
keep this up. The book says to add extra light to the morning hours
rather than at night, so they get up on the roosts before it gets dark.
I tried turning off the light altogether tonight, but they were still
wandering around, so when I went back to check, half of them were
bunched up on the floor. I turned the light back on, hoping they would
get on the roosts again. I don't know if the one in the house will
still be with us in the morning, but this is the best we can think of
to do right now. It is 1:00 AM. All advice and nursing help welcome. I
have to be in TC tomorrow by 12:30 and we both have a meeting in
Frankfort at 4:00.

Peggy & Jeanne, chicken ER nurses