4 month old pullet attacked by opossum

There is some powder you can get down at pet supplies for stopping bleeding I believe. Gosh I don't know how to make a bone stop bleeding. I'm sure with tissue applying some pressure.
 
Well I am sad to report that the chicken did not survive the night.

I'll just share a couple of things I learned from this:

1) This hen appeared to be very resilient to pain while I did the amputation. If you are in a situation where the choice is amputate a leg, kill the bird or leave it to die of natural causes (breeding, infection ...) then do not let the thought of the chickens pain stop you from amputating.
2) I believe this bird died from bleeding from the marrow (middle) of the bone that I could not control. If I had to do it again I would have taken the bone at the next good joint in order to avoid cutting the bone. This would have involved cutting more good flesh, but flesh can be compressed to stop bleeding, bone can not. Beyond the fact that the bone is where her bleeding was occurring, I examined the cut bone and it is pretty fragile and appears that is could easily splinter later in life causing more problems.


All in all, if I am ever in this situation again, I will attempt the amputation, but I will do it at the next good joint instead of mid bone.

I hope this helps some one else save their chicken.
 

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