Are you KIDDING me?!?!?

[Qi Chicken]

For the love of all that's holy!!! What ELSE can happen?!?!? Our flock was attacked by the neighbors dog a little over a week ago. Every night we have been flushing the wounds of the two injured ones with diluted iodine, then flushing with water, then putting on silvadene. (a cream for people with severe burns as a vet thought the green on the roos back was probably pseudomonas, a nasty bacteria)

So tonight we are out there for our ritual and I am cleaning out the hen's cage. I turn around and she is DRINKING the iodine solution. My daughter was helping me and we accidentally left the lid off. I run in the house and call poison control and basically they say it is a corrosive poison and she should drink lots of water, which she is doing.

I don't know how much she drank or how bad this is but seriously, I can not take ONE MORE THING!!!!!

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Yeesh! SO sorry! I hope she is okay!

 

[Jferlisi]

I hope she only drank a little of it and that everything is ok. You need a good thing to happen.

 

[emvickrey]

I hope she is going to be ok. And just a little advice. Never say what else will happen because fate will show you. Just say, It can only get better from here.

 

[dawg53]

If the iodine was diluted it might just pass on through. I'd force water into her to help flush it out. I wish you the best.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm sorry this happened to you and hope she is OK. Thanks for posting this warning. You may have saved several chickens.

Another place to be careful is if you wash the waterers with a mild bleach solution, they will drink the bleach solution if they can. If the bleach solution is strong enough, it can kill them. I make a point to dump my bleach solution where it immediately soaks in the ground and does not puddle up where they can drink it. And watch your containers that have that solution in it.

 

[mypicklebird]

If the green you are looking at is bright neon looking- and the tissue is not stinky or rotting- just bright green- this is probably just a bruise. Birds bruise GREEN, not purple/red like people/mammals. Their blood is different, and it breaks down differently (different color) in tissue. Does your vet see birds very often? Green skin after trauma in birds is normal (normal bruise), not necessary an infection. Of course it could be an infection. I wish I had taken a photo of my guinea fowl to post for you--- a week and a half after she was retrieved by my neighbor's pointer dog- her entire back was bright green. At that point, she was acting fine again & back out with the flock with treatment finished- but looked halloween scary.

A small amount of iodine, diluted, should not be harmful. Iodine is a necessary element for living. It is all about amounts/concentrations and chronicity. We drink corrosive things all of the time on purpose! (coffee, soda, ACV, lemon juice). People put things in chicken water too---- ACV, oxine that could be called mildly corrosive. And last but not least- people put iodine in drinking water on purpose---- for easy & portable water purification..... I bought some at REI last year for a hiking trip. So highly unlikely that any harm has been done by the chicken drinking some diluted iodine for flushing.

 

[Qi Chicken]

She's OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But keep the lid on the Iodine just in case!


Hey Guys, Thanks so much.

Mypicklebird--That was very informative. Thank you so much for that info, I had no idea that birds bruised green. I wish you did have a picture of it. It kind of had a sheen to it that a vet friend said was likely pseudomonas. But she didn't see it either. He didn't seem to feel unwell, but there was also a little bit of odor to it, not bad but a little bit. It seemed to follow along the feather shaft which kind of made me nervous. If anyone out there has a picture of green bruises I would love to see them.

And yes emvickrey. I should know better. You're so right. It is absolutely getting better from here! All the scabs fell off the hen overnight. It was almost hard to find the spots tonight. Roos tail is still a little rough with a deep cut but it is beginning to scab over. And both are growing little feather stubs. Great news!