- Mar 28, 2012
- 133
- 17
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I was contacted by a gal, who kept seeing a hen in her backyard, seemingly injured... She said the bird had been milling around for THREE WEEKS before I came to pick the bird up. Upon seeing the bird, it was only able to use one leg, and hop around... I could tell by looking at her, her feathers were dull, dead looking, wet, and cold, that she was not well... She felt of sickness and filth... I flipped her over, and immediately smelled her rotting flesh, and after i trimmed back some feathers, saw her horrific wound, half of her breast had been ripped open, her leg barely hanging on, the wound went way down into her leg, and up into her chest... It was enormous... She had a spot at the base of her neck, where her feathers had died, and mold had taken over and was growing in her feather folicles, and two other various wounds that were scabby, red, and angry looking...
I spent the next day or so asking around, googling, trying to figure out what to do... I knew I couldn't leave this wound the way it was, I consider maggot debridement, cutting it out, etc... But I just couldn't bring myself to do it... After many, many individuals told me to put the bird out of her misery, I decided that I would de exactly opposite what I was told to do, and decided to save her anyways. I figured if she had spent 3 weeks out in the SE Alaska wilderness, injured, with one usable leg, on her own, that she deserved a fair shot at life... She WANTED to live, I could see it in her eyes.
After "blowing" it out with warm water and a water bottle, in an attempt to loosen the debris and gunk, I brought a friend over, and together, with gloved fingers we manually debrided the wound to remove as much of the yuck as we could.
She was mentally exhausted, and no doubt in pain after that, but finally I felt hopeful about her future, not bleak-- there was good, pink flesh in there... We decided to "sugardine" the wound with Povodine-Iodine and sugar soaked gauze, and we wrapped her body, but she refused to stand up having her body wrapped, and we knew it was not good for her to lay on her side...
By this point, we had begun to notice a little more pep in her, she was more active, had a little more fight in her when we went to clean her wound out. But we had to switch to "packing" the wound with SSD (Silver sulfadiazine 1%) cream, and we couldn't wrap her body, to cover the wound and keep the cream in. Every other day, we would rinse the wound out, and pack more cream in. The wound was becoming drier-- and forming a scab, a wonderful, miraculous, healing scab... Which we would peel away anytime we packed more cream in... So I decided to allow her to go longer with the dried cream scab, and to my surprise, it worked even better!
There were days were it looked worse, and I wondered, am I doing this right? Is this bird going to get infected? But I kept going...
I took various photos along the way, in many stages-- usually AFTER the wound had been cleaned, and it was wet, and fresh looking, but I decided one day to "document" the SSD cream scabs that were forming in her wound... It looks like dried out dirty skin, but is actually the scab that formed when the cream dried out and stuck to her skin...
I left these scabs to "do their job" ... and it wasn't until nearly 5 weeks into treating this bird's heinous wound, that I *finally* noticed a difference in the depth of the wound...
It was a subtle change, but enough for me to be OVERJOYED!
During this time, she lived in a little dog kennel, equipped with water and food, and a seed treat... and had a heavy arsenal of supples and medicatoins... She came out of her little home every few days for wound cleaning, exercise, and "enrichment" playtimes, both indoors and out... Over time, she even gained the use of her second leg back!
She was often found being NAUGHTY on such adventures!!
She has now graduated to a more open kennel, with more room to move...
And now... Here is her most recent photo of her wound-- still has SSD cream scab bits in it... I had begun to notice she was more feisty, much more loud, and much more active, and I was certain that she was beginning to feel "normal" after feeling terrible for 2 months... And when I flipped her over (struggled to do it, mind you!) to check her wound, I was shocked at how shallow and closed up it is... So amazing!
She still has many weeks of recovery to go, but I feel like, soon she can be integrated into my flock, and I couldn't be happier at her amazing, miraculous recovery, and her amazing spirit and will to live! What a special bird!
I spent the next day or so asking around, googling, trying to figure out what to do... I knew I couldn't leave this wound the way it was, I consider maggot debridement, cutting it out, etc... But I just couldn't bring myself to do it... After many, many individuals told me to put the bird out of her misery, I decided that I would de exactly opposite what I was told to do, and decided to save her anyways. I figured if she had spent 3 weeks out in the SE Alaska wilderness, injured, with one usable leg, on her own, that she deserved a fair shot at life... She WANTED to live, I could see it in her eyes.
After "blowing" it out with warm water and a water bottle, in an attempt to loosen the debris and gunk, I brought a friend over, and together, with gloved fingers we manually debrided the wound to remove as much of the yuck as we could.
She was mentally exhausted, and no doubt in pain after that, but finally I felt hopeful about her future, not bleak-- there was good, pink flesh in there... We decided to "sugardine" the wound with Povodine-Iodine and sugar soaked gauze, and we wrapped her body, but she refused to stand up having her body wrapped, and we knew it was not good for her to lay on her side...
By this point, we had begun to notice a little more pep in her, she was more active, had a little more fight in her when we went to clean her wound out. But we had to switch to "packing" the wound with SSD (Silver sulfadiazine 1%) cream, and we couldn't wrap her body, to cover the wound and keep the cream in. Every other day, we would rinse the wound out, and pack more cream in. The wound was becoming drier-- and forming a scab, a wonderful, miraculous, healing scab... Which we would peel away anytime we packed more cream in... So I decided to allow her to go longer with the dried cream scab, and to my surprise, it worked even better!
There were days were it looked worse, and I wondered, am I doing this right? Is this bird going to get infected? But I kept going...
I took various photos along the way, in many stages-- usually AFTER the wound had been cleaned, and it was wet, and fresh looking, but I decided one day to "document" the SSD cream scabs that were forming in her wound... It looks like dried out dirty skin, but is actually the scab that formed when the cream dried out and stuck to her skin...
I left these scabs to "do their job" ... and it wasn't until nearly 5 weeks into treating this bird's heinous wound, that I *finally* noticed a difference in the depth of the wound...
It was a subtle change, but enough for me to be OVERJOYED!
During this time, she lived in a little dog kennel, equipped with water and food, and a seed treat... and had a heavy arsenal of supples and medicatoins... She came out of her little home every few days for wound cleaning, exercise, and "enrichment" playtimes, both indoors and out... Over time, she even gained the use of her second leg back!
She was often found being NAUGHTY on such adventures!!
She has now graduated to a more open kennel, with more room to move...
And now... Here is her most recent photo of her wound-- still has SSD cream scab bits in it... I had begun to notice she was more feisty, much more loud, and much more active, and I was certain that she was beginning to feel "normal" after feeling terrible for 2 months... And when I flipped her over (struggled to do it, mind you!) to check her wound, I was shocked at how shallow and closed up it is... So amazing!
She still has many weeks of recovery to go, but I feel like, soon she can be integrated into my flock, and I couldn't be happier at her amazing, miraculous recovery, and her amazing spirit and will to live! What a special bird!
thank you for all your hard work and your compassion for this little bird. What did you name her?
