Answer please! need wound help turned black. Have searched no HELP.

[newbiechickenowner]

Another peice of the puzzle:
It is drying out, it has fallen away from the side and looks better, HOWEVER, if you can picture what I am about to describe...I feel like we are left with a bigger problem. If you picture standing over her, the wound is behind the wing. Not near the wing...follow several inches from the wing attachment area back towards the rump and that is where it is. Now, picture a chunk being ripped downward from the slice on the back...this created a flap that is probably 2x3. This flap is CLEARLY not going to reattach, but, if she keeps healing the way she is, will be a chunk hanging down off of her side. All healthy tissue so far now that we have some of the black infection clearing. So, where the chunk is hanging down from will leave on the body/top side just healed skin/scar, but, the chunk hanging down is still attached on either side (about 3 inches apart) to the rest of her intact skin/body. SO...it will just be hanging there for anyone to tear or step on, etc....what a mess. That will skin her whole side if that were to get pulled on once healed.....What to DO?

 

[Clay Valley Farmer]

Just a couple thought from a wilderness first responder prespective.

Advice on the iodine and water is bang on, stay away from the harsh hydrogen peroxide type disinfectaints, they do a lot of harm to good tisue in order to kill any nasty stuff.

When dealing with a flap of skin, if the flap of skin is cut off from blood supply it will die and contribute to infection. Keeping it in the wound will make things worse. Some times it is a bit of a judgment call to determine if there is enough attachment to give blood profusion to the skin flap to keep it alive. But the small benifit of saving a patch of skin must be weighed against the huge risk of infection. A chunk of skin is very minor, there is lots to spare and the skin around can strech to cover things up later. Infection is killer.

Infection is aggresive and if you hope to stop it you must be agressive too, any infected dieing tissue must be removed to have much hope of stopping the infection from spreading or causing toxic shock.

From everything I have been taught it is far better to keep a high infection risk wound open and moist dressed with antibiotic than it is to attempt to stitch. Unless all infection is removed and everything is totally sterile stiching a wound closed just locks infection away from where it can be seen, treated and monitored. Once there is confidence the wound is past the worst of the infection risk the edges of the adjoing skin can be trimmed to expose a freash edge and stitched or glued. With people injured away from medical care this wound closing is typically done at a hospital post evacuation, but with a chicken you may be on your own as far as closing the wound. Even if you did go to a vet to have the stiching doneI would think a they would be blown away if a wound was cared for like this and they simply need to edge the wound and stich it up. The bill would be far lower too than dealing with and infected wound.

Surprising though how well even big wounds self close if infection is controlled.

Now this is just what I have been taught to look after people in rough situations.... Chickens????

 

[AndreaS]

I think with the Pen G It's supposed to go in the breast muscle, not close to the bone, and in a new spot each time. I'll try to find the info I have and link it for you.

Good luck!

Edited to add link: I found the penicillin info. Go down to threehorses post, underneath the wound care article that I posted for you before is another one she wrote "using penicillin in chickens" . Check it out & keep us updated! I think the idea with the Pen G is to hit any infection hard and fast rather than putting the bird through a prolonged dosage of diluted antibiotics.

From what I've read- most of the -mycins in the foil packages are for respiratory issues and are no longer effective due to over use. You have to make sure you are treating with an antibiotic that is indicated for use in wounds.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=237982

 

[CarolAnn]

In May when mt first batch of chicks was almost a month old a neighbor dog got in and killed and/or wounded all but 4. One had puncture wounds on her back and underside and something hanging out underneath. I cleaned it best I could and plastered the wounded areas with all I had at the time, triple antibiotic ointment. It worked as antibiotic and as a barrier from germs and flies AND to cover the smell of blood so the others wouldn't peck at it. My granddaughters tell me birds can't smell, but I sure have seen them scope out an open spot on another bird fast enough. And they won't leave it alone until I put the ointment on it. I hope your girl will be okay.

 

[Judy]

What Clay Valley Farmer said is spot on. I would add one thing, though, hopefully to clarify. When skin is lost, you keep the wound open and wet in order for it to do what is called granulate in. New skin won't come if all skin tissue in the wound is lost. Instead, it granulates in. It does this from the edges toward the center, if the area is kept clean and wet, as with antibiotic ointment. People heal the same way. Granular tissue ends up being what we call scar tissue. I have a patch of it on my leg from a dog bite some 40 years ago; lots of people do. Mine is almost invisible now -- and the only place on my leg that does not grow hair. The new skin does not stretch across the wound; a new kind of tissue, granular tissue, is formed.

 

[Clay Valley Farmer]

Thanks for clairifying that. It seems so counter intuative to keep a wound open but often that is the best thing. It is amazing how skin heals in to cover over nasty wounds. I had not herd the term "granulates" but that term makes perfect sense and describes it well. Makes for some scar tisue which can be a minor problem in restricting movment, but cosmetic work is done all the time to essentialy remove this scar tissue and rejoin the two edges, all sorts of streaching and grafting tricks to make that work. But all that is way beyond chicken first aid. Main thing is to get the infection agressivly, a bit of scar tissue on the chickens back in the least of the worries.

 

[Kasia]

Yes, peroxide also kills healthy tissue. And it's best to leave it uncovered once it dries, air helps speed up healing. When one of my RIR hens attacked my crippled hen, Pippi, and opened her whole side up and punctured her lung, she needed emergency surgery to close up the hole in her lung but they left the wound open and packed it with gauze, added stitches to keep the gause in but didn't stitch it closed. I was told to soak the gause with the iodine solution twice a day for a week. After that the vet took her stitches off and told me to use honey for another week, then leave it open.

The flap that's just hanging down, you can gently cut it off with scizzors but ONLY if it's completely dried out. If it's still not dry, you will make her bleed, and you don't need her bleeding. The flap will not close. But she will be OK without it.

I give injections into the chest muscle, that's what my vet told me to do, so I didn't even ask if there's other places to give them. You can buy Baytril online at Twin City Poultry supply. That's where I get mine. The vet charges outrageous amounts for Baytril. The injectable has to stay refrigerated but the pills don't. Tylan injectable also needs to be refrigerated, but the powder you with with their water doesn't.

Oh, and a serama is the worlds smallest breed of chicken. Here is one of mine, her name is Flower. She's going through a moult right now so she looks scraggly.

 

[newbiechickenowner]

Poor Sandy just died in my arms. It is a very sad thing. The children were with me. The wound had gone so far down the side of her skin that when you stuck your finger in the hole to put in medicine, I could push the length of my finger down into the pocket. She got to go outside today...I sensed that it would be good for her either way, but might be her last time out. I just didn't see things going well even though she was eating and drinking and the upper part of the infection/scab/wound looked good. The pocket was just too deep. Anyway, I cleaned it out tonight by pulling the skin to make a pocket so the hydrogen perox could get in there and then we betadined and I put in some ointment, but, when I went to put her back in her crate, she wouldn't stand. I think it was too much for a little body to take that kind of wound treatment. Her head bobbed and I held her for about a half hour. Then with a few quick seizures after being what appeared to be almost gone, she left. We tried. Losing a chicken sucks.

 

[Buugette]

I'm so sorry for your loss.

D

 

[noodleroo]

I'm sorry. You did the best you could; it was just her time to go...