My child has a infected wound now

[jlillethun]

On our homestead we LOVE to hold our chickens and they love to be held. We got new chicks and have been letting our 6 and 10 yr old children hold the chickens. The other day one of the chicks (who really is about 3 months) decided she wanted to put up a fight and she scratched my daughters arm. Now it's a week later and my daughters arm has a nasty infection. We have taken her in and she is now on antibiotics but I was curious......what kind of infection could she have gotten from my chickens. Any answers would help.

Thank you

 

[drumstick diva]

Probably a lot of different infections - if the bird had poo on it's feet(very likely) or if it was a puncture wound that didn't bleed (tetanus), etc. If it was a cat instead of a chicken, you could get cat scratch fever. Really scratches or bites from any kind of animal can be problematic.


Really kids/adults should wear goggles if they are going to have chicks/chickens up by their face. They are attracted to shiny things , earrings, eyeballs and they can cause severe injury.

 

[jlillethun]

Well we know for sure it came from the chicken and not a cat. I'm just hoping it's not going to turn into something really bad. Should I do something to treat my birds....I normally don't vaccinat them, or treat their poo area? I just don't want this to happen again

 

[ten chicks]

Well we know for sure it came from the chicken and not a cat. I'm just hoping it's not going to turn into something really bad. Should I do something to treat my birds....I normally don't vaccinat them, or treat their poo area? I just don't want this to happen again

Any scratch from any animal can cause an infection. Did you treat the scratch when it first occurred? I always clean and apply an antibiotic ointment on any scratch,from any of my pets.