darlingdarla
Songster
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-
This is the second leg, the back of her leg is tinted green.
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-
This is the second leg, the back of her leg is tinted green.
