Help needed! Severe head injury on EE (warning: graphic photos) :(

3 of everything

Chirping
7 Years
Jun 3, 2013
18
2
79
Spokane, Washington
Any advice greatly appreciated. Not sure how to treat this little one. She's just about a year old. Found her tonight huddled away from the other chickens in our backyard with a severe head injury. Thankfully her eye wasn't injured but half of her scalp is missing. What do I do now? Bleeding has stopped. We have her inside in a dog crate in a dark quiet place. She drank water and ate a little. Lots of diarrhea though. She's the same sweet chicken that's in my profile pic.
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Have you cleaned it yet? How do her eyes look? Are they glossy? Clear? Is she alert? That looks like a bite wound to me. I would make sure there's no foreign debris in it.
 
That's good to hear. The best way to clean a head wound like that is with saline solution. Do NOT use peroxide or alcohol. It will hurt the good flesh. Rinse it softly,try not to encourage more bleeding. Then apply some no aspirin / no pain killer style triple antibiotic and keep it clean. Make sure its pain killer free, as that's toxic to birds.
 
Okay. I've got saline in the house so I'll go do that now. Good info in the pain killers/toxicity. Thank you so much for the advice on this. I didn't even know where to begin. Very stunned by it all.
 
Thank you for all the advice. It was great. We've been washing out the wound with saline and treating it with a topical antibiotic 2-3x per day but it kept getting puss. In addition, when she stretched her neck to preen herself (good sign) we noticed that the neck muscle was exposed. Since stitching it would be difficult in that area, we decided to get some penicillin from the feed store on board along with some Vetacyn wound spray. Started her injection of penicillin today so hopefully, all that combined will get her healthy again.
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Its a VERY good sign that she's eating and drinking still. It looks like it's starting to heal. Still looks pretty bad though. Putting her in secondary antibiotics should help with the puss. Penicillin, did you get short or long acting? What's the rating on it?

Keep me updated with pictures! She's on the mend, that's good.
 
Vetericyn or betadine work well for preventing infection. A once or twice use of hydrogen peroxide will help clean and debride a dirty wound well. After that it may affectwound healing, but it is still agood wound treatment. Triple antibiotic or plain Neosporin ointment are also good to apply twice daily.
 

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