Bad leg wound turning black and scaly leg mites

darlingdarla

Songster
Oct 28, 2018
306
607
186
Laurel, Maryland
A week and a half ago I inspected my chickens legs and saw signs of scaly leg mites. No big deal, I've treated them before, they're just sort of on my property. I rubbed their legs with Vaseline and oiled down the roosts, I also dusted the coop with permitherin dust in case there were any other parasites around since it's just starting to get hot hot here. I would have done the Vaseline again over the weekend but I had a family emergency and had to leave the birds with my sitter.
When I got back I inspected the birds legs and most already looked better except for my two year old Speckled Sussex. She had a nasty wound on her middle toe, my guess is it got caught in something and the scales on top were gouged off. A black scab covered it so I made plans to soak and remove the scab the next day, but for the time being I wrapped her foot with some ointment.
The next day, yesterday, her foot looked worse. I still soaked her and removed the scab (which was much harder than a typical infected scab). The wound is much deeper than I thought, almost to her bone. On top of this, despite being as gentle as I could while she was soaking, her skin literally peeled off by itself. There was no blood, but it left her legs raw, so I bandaged them with triple antibiotic ointment as well. The skin around the original wound had turned black, but not horribly so.
Today I changed her bandage and she is much worse, most of her foot with the wound is blackened and two toes on what was the healthy one are as well. They are cold and stiff, she is walking only when she needs too and slept outside the coop last night. Obviously I'm very concerned.
I know chickens are quite capable of recovering from many wounds but this looks bad. I've been researching amputations, but I don't think she'd have much left if it comes to that.
This is the leg with the bad wound, her legs are usually light pink-
20210715_145354.jpg
20210715_145402.jpg

This is the second leg, the back of her leg is tinted green.
20210715_150408.jpg
20210715_150415.jpg
20210715_150539.jpg
 
Yeah.... I don't think that's going to get better. :(

I am pretty sure that leg is dead.
I think so too, no vet available to me unfortunately I have searched for one. I could attempt an amputation, I've seen them done, but I wonder if it's more humane to euthanize.
Do you know of an antibiotic that would help her? I've only used Tylan 50 before but my understanding is that is for respiratory infections.
I'm going to the feed store today to get an antibiotic and planning to do whatever I need to do tomorrow.
 
I think so too, no vet available to me unfortunately I have searched for one. I could attempt an amputation, I've seen them done, but I wonder if it's more humane to euthanize.
Do you know of an antibiotic that would help her? I've only used Tylan 50 before but my understanding is that is for respiratory infections.
I'm going to the feed store today to get an antibiotic and planning to do whatever I need to do tomorrow.
I can't think of any antibiotics off the top of my head, maybe someone else will chime in and help.

Personally, I think amputation sounds inhumane. Unless you could put her an an anesthetic, it would hurt her a lot to cut it off. She would also be at risk for excessive blood loss, and she could kick her leg during the surgery and could cause you to mess up. I think at this point, you may have to put her down :(
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom