Advice on chicken with injured foot

[ISophT]

One of you favorite backyard chickens, Elsa, got her toe caught in the coop door about a week and half ago. She was caught by one "toe" in the door for several hours. (I don't know the right term for the digit of a chicken.) When we found her and released her the skin was off a 1/4 inch section of her digit 2/3 of the way around. She was bleeding quite a bit. We brought her in and cleaned it with soap and water, salt water, peroxide , etc over the course of several days and put triple antibiotic ointment on it. After maybe 5 days of this the wound seemed scabbed over and we put her out with the flock, bringing her in every day or two to clean the wound. She seemed to be acting and doing fine. Today when I looked at it the digit looked awful. It is discolored all the way to the claw. She was favoring the leg and her poop seems a little darker and softer than normal. We cleaned the wound again and brought her back in. She is eating and acting OK, but we are all worried because it looks awful. We would welcome any advice. Is she going to lose the toe? Can she survive OK without it? Is it infected? Is she going to die? We have only had chickens about a year, and this is our first serious injury. Thanks for any help!!

 

[Eggcessive]

She will most likely lose the toe up to the healthy skin. It is similar to a frostbitten toe. The black skin is indicative of no circulation. It is probably very painful as well. Frostbitten toes can take several weeks to fall off. I would either take her to a vet to have it amputated if possible, or you could apply betadine to the toe daily, and leave her alone. A dog crate would limit her activity, but if she wants to run around with the others, that would be fine. Whatever makes her more comfortable, poor thing. I have found that chickens will get hurt easily from doors and many other things around the coop. I always fasten doors to my coop and run open and closed, depending on the time of day. I had one pullet that got her foot caught in the handle of a waterer, and was found hanging after giving up. She got better thank goodness.

 

[ISophT]

Thank you so much! I will go buy betadine now and will look further into the vet possibility.