Chicken was attacked/ has med size gash with exposed muscle or meaty area

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A Island Chicks

A Island Chicks

Hatching
5 Years
Aug 8, 2014
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1
9
I was gone for a week and my six chickens were in care of a very busy husband and older son who feed watered and made sure they were all locked up in the coop at night. Something had attacked one of my chickens and left a medium size open gash that looks as if there is an infection, due to exposed meaty area that is a brownish color. The chicken is missing most of her feathers on her back side and when she opened her wings all of her feathers are missing under. However she is running around and eating and taking care of herself like usual except for lifting her foot up when in standing position on the side the gash is on. Is it to late if I swabbed the gash with hydro peroxide and put petroleum jelly on the wound do you think? Or should I let it be and hope it scabs over and does not get infected? I am not a vet so I am not sure if this is infected already or not. I am also worried that the other chickens can get a disease if she contracts a disease by being wounded.
 
Is the wound shallow, or deep? Is it a smooth, clean cut? Or is it jagged? It could be a simple accident that ended badly, or an animal could have gotten to her. If I were you I would separate her from the other chickens, maybe put her in a brood if necessary. Make sure she has plenty of food & water. When a chicken is with others, it can sometimes get dung or other matter on it and if any gets in the cut, that would be VERY BAD, so you don't want to risk it. If you do put her in the brood, clean the hay and/or shavings everyday; you want as little bacteria as possible near her or her wound.
You have done the right thing by putting the hydro peroxide and petroleum jelly on her wound. It might be hard to put bandage on a chicken, but if the wound progressively gets worse you should put more medication on it to cleanse it, then cover the area with Vaseline. That way, if a piece of poo does hit the wound, it becomes stuck in the Vaseline instead of the flesh. DO NOT allow any chickens to peck the wound if you don't separate her. If you do separate her, she should heal up quite nicely although you might have to watch out when reintroducing her to the flock. The chickens might act completely normal or they may be aggressive towards her, thinking her a "new chicken" that they need to put in its place. Any aggressive behaviors shown by the other chickens normally pass within the week.
Hope I helped! If you have any questions, just ask.
 
Thanks for responding. All six are free ranged. I do notice that even before I left that one bird (the bossy one of the group) picked on her the most. She has been keeping to herself and staying undercover. I do not have a cage to put her in, However I will try to create something that is safe an that she can be protected at night in. She is still running around like nothing is wrong but the gash is wide and I can see meat, if this was a human she would defiantly need stitches. I am not sure how long she has been like this, a few days or the whole week. I read how to apply hydro peroxide on cuts and swab with Vaseline to protect but have not done this as of yet. I wanted to make sure that it was okay to do this on an open gash as it is.
 
Yes, it is okay to put on Vaseline. The fact that she acts as she normally would is a good sign--a VERY good sign. It shows she's not in too much pain. However, if shes TOO active, she could hurt herself and/or tear the wound open further, possibly causing a lot of bleeding. If this happens, you should either:
1) attempt to bandage her after cleaning the wound as you did before
OR
2)clean the wound and add an additional layer of Vaseline, then enforce the separation. Maybe put her in a smaller pen.

As for pens, it doesn't necessarily NEED to be for chickens. An old dog kennel works, or a rabbit hutch(without rabbit, of course). A bird cage, if she can fit comfortably, or even a large cardboard box until you find something better. For the cardboard box idea, there should be shavings in the bottom, and it needs either high walls or you can put netting over it, so she doesn't go hopping around your house, garage, shed, etc. If you do the cardboard box, it NEEDS to be in a covered area otherwise it will get wet and grow moldy.
Dog kennel: this does not need ot be in a covered space if you have plastic or a large tray you can put over the top. If the weather turns bad, you should either bring her inside with the kennel or put plastic on the sides and back as well. Shavings are not needed if you put the kennel outside, where grass can poke up through. Inside, however, you need to put an old ratty blanket down or tray and add shavings.
Rabbit hutch: add shavings or straw to the sheltered area, and you're good. If it is a movable, in door rabbit cage, put down a tray(if there isn't one) and add shavings.
Bird cage: take out perches if possible. She can strain her muscle and tear the wound is she tries to jump to the perches. Add shavings to the bottom. And of course, in all of these, there needs to be an abundance of food/water.
Hope I helped! ~Meghan
 
I had a similar situation a few months ago. My roosters spur tore about a half dollar size hole in the side of one of my hens, all the way through the skin, the muscle was visible. She was acting completely normal, her wing covered it perfectly and I did not find it until it was a few days old. It looked like there might be some infection so I flushed it thoroughly with hydrogen peroxide to remove dirt and crust then applied a thick layer of Neosporin. The next day I flushed it again with 50/50 peroxide and water then covered the area well with Blu Kote. I did also give her oral antibiotics for 5 days. The hole closed up, new skin filled in very quickly and it looked like new in just a few days.
 
My chick was attacked by a hawk with the same kind of injury. First day flushed with water, gauze bandage that was medical taped on, and separated from the flock, with heat lamp. Next morning, removed bandage and bathed whole bird in epsom salt bath. Dried and applied medical sponge by tape, acted like a shield under her wing.When I tried to reintroduce to the flock the mother hen almost did not accept her. Luckily the other chicks did and helped to convince the mother. Separated the chicks from the hens for most of the day so the chick could rest.Due to that happening I decided to keep her with the others under the hen that night. It worked. Over the next few days, reapplied new bandages that worked moderately well. Finally decided to put some neosporin on. The area had no skin but was not infected, brown and dried out looking, infected would have been angry red and swollen. The neosporin was nice for rehydrating. By this time the bird had stopped limping and was getting around ok. Since the wound was not looking worse,decided to stop putting a physical bandage on, but found some liquid bandage spray which I wish I had found sooner. It covered the wound, with no bandage in the way and probably kept the area from drying out worse. She ended up with a scab formed that was only removed when it fell off naturally. The skin grew back and then feathers. For your bird it sounds like it is not infected so I would use liquid bandage after it was cleaned. The epsom salt bath worked really well and was healing to all the injuries big and small. Since it's all ready running around with the others I would leave that be unless you see her being picked on aggressively. Maybe you can isolate her with a compatible friend(s) until fully active. If you don't have a pen then don't worry, she probably already knows how to avoid the rough ones. Sounds like shes already more than halfway ok. Good luck
 
We were very lucky, The chicken who was injured is healing nicely. We left her alone and she healed. Her wing covered the gash and her feathers grew back. I do notice she is a bit more careful jumping around but she is acting totally normal. For a little while I noticed that one of the other hens perched next to her at night and put her wing around the injured chicken where she had a loss of feathers. Who new chickens had humanity...:) So Sweet!
 
Just read your posts. Thank you all. We had our little slw pecked by another hen and quite an injury. Your posts give me hope that I have responded correctly and treated her at least for today. I plan to tyr the epsom salt bath tomorrow. Praying that she pulls through.
 
Trying this today!! I have a similar situation...hen has gash with muscle exposed due to attack from my guinea. I put the hydrogen peroxide on using a spray bottle adjusted for a very light, gentle mist. Sweet-natured hen is taking it very well, still eating, drinking and standing up! As soon as it dries, I'll apply petroleum jelly and take some photos.

Very glad to have found this thread! I didn't know if there was any hope for her, the gash just looks so bad! This gives me hope
yippiechickie.gif
 

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