Help! I need emergency advice for mangled wings! -Update with photos (Warning: gore)

[Freckleluck]

My boyfirend's mom's guinea keets were attacked last night, and by the time we heard them and made it out there, one was missing, one was fine, and one was obviously injured. The right wing is missing from the first joint onward, all that is left is the first section of bone. There is no skin or feathers covering it- just exposed muscle. It looks like an uncooked, skinned 1st joint of a chicken wing. We had to trim chunks of hanging flesh from the end. The other wing is broken, hanging down limply, I don't know how bad the breaks are. There is missing skin and feathers all over that wing. The tail may also be broken, it's hanging down. Near the rear end is a huge wound, with skin and feathers continuing to be scraped off all the way up the body under the wing. We cut the feathers around the wounds, applied antibiotic ointment to sterile pads and folded one over the stump of muscle and bone, another over the broken wing. We then wrapped both wing remainders with gauze strip. We put antibiotic ointment on the other wounds on the body. We wrapped the wings against the body with gauze strip so the keet wouldn't flap too much and so the broken wing wasn't hanging down. He was not happy about, escaped from our hands a couple times and kicked a lot. He was alert and paid attention to sounds and movements. Today we are getting betadine and more gauze strip. We didn't wash any of the wounds, so we were thinking of doing a saline rinse, a betadine rinse, and putting antibiotic ointment on all the wounds. We may have to trim more feathers. I'll update with photos as soon as I can.
Questions: Should we keep the wings/wounds covered or leave them exposed with ointment on them? Should we keep the wings wrapped to the body, as we did last night? What should we do about the stump of a wing and the broken wing?
Thanks everybody who looks at this and offers some advice, it's appreciated!

 

[CMV]

Put that poor bird down. There is no point in trying to save it. It may survive, but it will need to be isolated so long to fully heal wounds of that magnitude, you may as well put it out of its misery now and save it the torture of isolation, which is particularly cruel for a flock animal to endure.

Believe me. I saved a bird that I should have put down. I did her no favors. If given a chance to do things over again, I would have done it differently.

 

[bj taylor]

Put that poor bird down. There is no point in trying to save it. It may survive, but it will need to be isolated so long to fully heal wounds of that magnitude, you may as well put it out of its misery now and save it the torture of isolation, which is particularly cruel for a flock animal to endure.

Believe me. I saved a bird that I should have put down. I did her no favors. If given a chance to do things over again, I would have done it differently.

i agree. there is a point when trying to save an animal is more cruel than anything you can do.

 

[roostorf]

I have had birds lose thier wing at the joint and live happy normal lives. They do a good job healing on their own and I have never needed to do anything other than spray with an antibiotic spray. Feel the wing every day and if it feels hot to the touch it is becoming infected, in which case I'd give the bird a small injection of either Tylan 50 or LA200 (cattle meds, but low dose maybe .5-1cc or maybe more depending on size of bird. I saved a sweetie one wing cuckoo maran from my girlfriends neighbors dogs and she is doing well, laying eggs and even trying to hatch them. Many times birds can be saved and adapt very well to handicapped limbs, they just need extra care. I did have to install a handicapped ramp to the roosts for her, all the birds use it now and it might help prevent bumblefoot, its just a diagonal ladder to a kids swingset but works great.

I think that joint is evolved to break away in a last ditch effort to escape a predator, dont kill him unless he is suffering. Keep it clean, and bandaged, maybe let him heal inside the house and put on the radio or tv to keep it stimulated, scambled eggs and crickets from the pet store are good to keep its spirits up. I like to give the animals a fighting chance, but if they seem too depressed or in too much pain or suffering killing it is sometimes the best option though

 

[brown]

My first reaction is to put it down.

However, if you are going to try to nurse it, my question would be how sterile is the environment? That would help determine if the wrapping is needed.

Sorry I'm not more help.

 

[Freckleluck]

Thanks for the advice, everyone, Here's an update with photos: The keet had partially ripped off the bandages during the night. We unwrapped the wings, cleaned them as best we could with a saline solution and an iodine solution. It was difficult because of the greasyness of the antibiotic ointment from the night before. The wounds were still bleeding very slowly. The left wing (the broken/mangle one), appears to have two complete breaks where the bones sticks out- the radius near the second joint and the ulna near the first joint. I couldn't bring myself to try to push the bones back in, but I made a figure 8 wrap with strips of soft t-shirt and secured it around its body. The left wing stump looked better than I ahd expected, as well as the keet's side- turns out it only has a wound at the base of the tail. He stayed very still during all of this and only struggled a couple times. We put antibiotic ointment on all the wounds and put the keet in crate with a heating pad under the towel, a lamp, and food and water. He immediately began eating the scrambled eggs and peas I gave him. No healing has taken place, the wounds look completely fresh. If we believe he is beginning to get an infection we will give him penicillin. If he becomes listless or uninterested in eating or drinking, we'll have to put him to rest. In the meantime we hope to give him the best care we can. My main concern is the mangled wing- Muscles and tendon are showing, and I'm afraid if I don't attempt to set the bones, it will never heal and amputation may be the only option. I also don't think I can take the figure eight bandage off, even though there are numerous wounds under it, because I would be disrupting any bone healing that could occur. Below are photos- they're really gruesome, I apologize if you didn't want to see them...

Photo of the right wing stump:

Photo of mangled left wing:

Close-up of breaks on right wing (not very clear):

Photo of the keet after we bandaged his left mangled wing :