Punctured beak

[Montymoo]

Last Thursday afternoon my Marans flew into the only piece of hardware cloth with exposed ends in the run and punctured her beak. The bleeding stopped quickly and I’ve been cleaning it 4x a day with Vetericyn on a cotton ball and then putting Neosporin on it.
I have been feeding her wet crumbles and she is eating very well. She just can’t/won’t eat anything harder. I hung an apple today and I chewed pieces so she could have some too.

I’ve attached a picture of how it’s healing. Does it look like she will lose the top layers?

 

[coach723]

The picture isn't clear enough, but it appears she did already lose the outer part of the upper beak. It will harden and hurt less, continue with the moistened crumbles until she's eating normally. Raising up the dish and using an open, deeper dish can also help, same for water. She will have a harder time picking things up off the ground. As long as the quick wasn't damaged too much it should grow back, but that can take some time, beaks grow slowly.

 

[Montymoo]

Uploaded more pix. She is eating well from a narrow deep bowl raised up for her.
The beak is still smooth across the dark area so nothing fell off yet but probably will soon.

 

[coach723]

I marked one of your pictures below, circled the part that looks broken off to me and the quick is what is left. There may be a thin layer of beak, can't really tell. The yellow line is where it looks broken. You can see the sharp edge of the break in the lower left part of the picture, left edge of the yellow line, on the beak if you zoom in.

 

[Montymoo]

I marked one of your pictures below, circled the part that looks broken off to me and the quick is what is left. There may be a thin layer of beak, can't really tell. The yellow line is where it looks broken. You can see the sharp edge of the break in the lower left part of the picture, left edge of the yellow line, on the beak if you zoom in. View attachment 3764256
View attachment 3764258

Thank you for the marked photos. I guess we’re in for the long haul. How long do you think I should be putting on the Vetricyn and Neosporin?

 

[coach723]

Once it's dried up it's not necessary. At that point it will be much less painful. She still may have trouble getting food off the ground until it grows out some. It's a good idea to get a weight on her and weigh her regularly until she's more normal, to make sure she's taking in enough and not missing out due to the injury. An inexpensive digital kitchen scale works well for that.

 

[Montymoo]

I marked one of your pictures below, circled the part that looks broken off to me and the quick is what is left. There may be a thin layer of beak, can't really tell. The yellow line is where it looks broken. You can see the sharp edge of the break in the lower left part of the picture, left edge of the yellow line, on the beak if you zoom in. View attachment 3764256
View attachment 3764258

Thank you for the marked photos. I guess we’re in for the long haul. How long do you think I need to keep using the topicals?

 

[Montymoo]

Thank you for the marked photos. I guess we’re in for the long haul. How long do you think I need to keep using the topicals?

Sorry! Double posted!

 

[Montymoo]

Once it's dried up it's not necessary. At that point it will be much less painful. She still may have trouble getting food off the ground until it grows out some. It's a good idea to get a weight on her and weigh her regularly until she's more normal, to make sure she's taking in enough and not missing out due to the injury. An inexpensive digital kitchen scale works well for that.

I’ve got just the thing. Great idea! I’ll start in the morning

 

[Montymoo]

I thought it might be good to post a follow up. We spent the last few weeks feeding bowls of feed gruel to her- and anyone else that liked it. The cleaning and topical antibiotic went on for 10 days. She didn’t lose any weight and has been pooping and laying normally. Just yesterday she started taking scratch from my hand and eating it off the ground. She still won’t go for a hanging apple or cauliflower so she gets a little side bowl of those treats shredded up.
Thanks again for the advice. This site and it’s members is a Godsend