Advice Wanted on Treating Chick with Bad Toe

I have a 2 week old Rhode Island Red pullet (Pepper is her name). I heard the chicks get into an excited chorus and I checked in on them to calm them down and see what was going on. Pepper has what appears to be a missing toenail. I'm not sure if it came from the dried poop on her foot causing an infection (was not there for long if I recall, though it was dried, so maybe it was on there longer than I realized.), or if in the excite it somehow got pulled off. There was just a little bit of blood, and the first pic shows what I saw at first. I soaked it in warm water and put a little bit of neosporin (Thanks BYC!) but I'm not sure where to go from here. She's not limping too bad, just a little owie like if someone had their foot fall asleep. When she stands she will put some weight on it, but she'll also hold her foot up, so she switches between the two. She didn't seem to be in shock as she flapped her wings a little bit when I was adjusting her on the towel to get a better picture. 20 minutes have gone by and she is eating and it appears the swelling has gone down.

We had a dog lose her toenails (I'm cursed with toenail problems apparently!) and we cleaned and vet wrapped her...which is quite a bit easier than a chick foot. My questions kinda range in: "How serious is this?" to "What else should/can I do?"

Thanks in advance!


How we found it:



Pepper after cleaning and applying some Neosporin.



Sleepy? She had an exciting night.




Again, thanks in advance!

Keep her on dry clean bedding. Apply some plain neosporin or vetericyn.
Keep an eye on it for any infections, pus, odors etc.

Wyorp Rock said:

Keep her on dry clean bedding. Apply some plain neosporin or vetericyn.
Keep an eye on it for any infections, pus, odors etc.

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Thank you!