Severely injured chick, graphic pics, please advise

[geowoman]

I came home this afternoon to discover that a chick hatched out of one of my broody's nests and the other broody was attacking it. I brought the chick inside, cleaned it up and put colloidal silver and neosporin on it's back. I've been dropper feeding it with water and probiotic/electrolyte mix and it seems to be perking up, walking, etc. I'm going to try to feed it some yogurt and cooked yolk slurry in a bit.

I've read a few threads, but can anyone think of anything else I need to do? How often should I give it water throughout the night? I'm assuming I shouldn't leave it alone for a whole 7 hours.

Thanks!!!
Tara

 

[geowoman]

 

[geowoman]

 

[Sea Wolf]

Hard to tell from your pictures but, if that area is exposed flesh, it would be more humane to euthanize it. Do not continue to put neosporin on it and I would not give it yogurt. Take chick starter and moisten it with warm water. Put the wet mash in a shallow dish and tap/poke at it with the point of a pencil. Move it around and lift up bits of it with the point. If the chick is going to eat, the movement will attract it to eat. Get a brooder lamp over it to keep it warm. Same as you would do with a group of chicks. If it is eating and drinking on it's own, you can leave it for 7 hours. It is best to get the chick to eat on it's own. Trying to force feed one this small and so injured will do more harm than good.

 

[geowoman]

Thanks Sea Wolf. Assuming I can bring myself to do it, how would you recommend I euthanize it?

It is exposed flesh. It is walking and taking water from me readily, but not eating. Why would it be worse to feed it? This is my first experience with this sort of thing.

 

[Sea Wolf]

Small chicks are fragile and stress alone can kill it. In my opinion, there is too great an area of exposed flesh to attempt to keep it alive. If it eats on it's own is one thing but handling it to force feed it will cause it more pain than it is already in and to do so will probably hasten it's death. Take a sharp pair of scissors place them right behind it's head and quickly snip off it's head. A sharp, hard blow with the edge of your hand right behind the head will also kill it instantly by breaking and crushing it's neck. You will have to hold it by the legs to get it to lay flat on a table. If you can not do this, hold it under water to drown it or place it in a small plastic bag, remove most of the air and seal it. It will not take long for it to suffocate. Consider taking it to a vet to have them do it for you. Doing this is never easy.

 

[Keaokun]

This injury looks very bad. The chick must be in so much pain... Euthanasia is the most humane at this point.
Easiest thing to do is put the chick in a plastic container with a lid along with a smaller bowl with dry ice and water. Shut it and the dry ice and water will make co2 that will kill the chick fairly quickly.


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[enola]

The chick will be fine until his third day not eating. Why stop using neosporin? The pecked area needs to be protected from drying out.

 

[Sea Wolf]

You are not seeing the bigger picture of how much skin tissue has been ripped off of this poor chick. For a wound like this, if it was much smaller, you would want it to dry and skin over. As long as you keep the surface "wet" it is a serious risk for infection as well as allowing more body fluids to continue to seep out and dehydrate the chick. A smaller wound such as this might be able to heal on such a young bird if it does not die from the stress itself. This chick appears to have had over half of it's skin ripped away and it needs to be humanely put out of it's misery. The back of this chick is not simply "pecked". The skin itself has been entirely ripped away.

 

[emmaie892000]

I feel like there has been a LOT of misinformation here. Why are you so quick to euthanize?

It seems very alert, and if the injury is just skin, it heals up fairly quickly. Chicks are very hardy, and until it loses its will to live I would keep helping it fight.
Also, some of your euthanasia methods listed above are incredibly cruel, such as drowning.

Geowoman, I would keep fighting for the little baby, but it's up to you I suppose.
If you do want to try, you'll need to keep it separate (obviously) and make sure it's getting fluids and nutrients. I don't understand where they assumed you were force feeding it or intubating it, considering your original post says nothing of the sort. If it's eating by itself, keep giving it food and water of course! The foods you mentioned sound like good foods.
Now, you can put neosporin on it to help with infection, but soon you're going to want to start helping it scab over. Blukote can keep it drier, and help keep the chick from picking at it (in case it tries).
Overall just let it rest and heal its little body.
I think it has a fairly good chance.